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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306497">Ballad of a Thin Man</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chapscher/pseuds/chapscher'>chapscher</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Watcher Entertainment RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hospitalization, M/M, Songfic, Surrealism, Verbal Abuse, depictions of paralysis, graphic descriptions of suffocation, morbid elements, steven/shane (unrequited)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:13:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>59,509</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28306497</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chapscher/pseuds/chapscher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He was far too tired for this. He couldn’t even clearly remember what Ryan’s rental car looked like. He told himself that Ryan was probably out parking somewhere and expected Shane to check them in; which was essentially how they worked whenever they filmed on the road. But Shane didn’t think he ever checked them in while he was quite this tired before.<br/>He couldn’t even remember getting out of the car.<br/>-<br/>Shane finds himself in a strange hotel that lingers in the space between memories and the unimagined.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Skeptic Believer Book Club Hallowe'en Fic Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. You Walk Into the Room</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/isultoktok/gifts">isultoktok</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For isultoktok. For many holidays. I'm still working away on this, but I wanted to start releasing this chapter by chapter. I usually don't do angst, but this gave me the chance to try something new! I had fun with it and hope you enjoy. </p>
<p>As AO3 does not allow posting a song’s text in its entirety, lines have been removed from each verse. Although it is not necessary to understand the work, I highly encourage readers to listen to the Dylan recording.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You walk into the room</em>
  <br/>
  <em>With your pencil in your hand</em>
  <br/>
  <em>[...]</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You try so hard</em>
  <br/>
  <em>But you don't understand</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Just what you will say</em>
  <br/>
  <em>When you get home</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>The windows of the hotel glowed a dim, pale orange, the only light visible on the winding and tree-lined road. That welcoming light fractured as it was refracted on the raindrops of the heavy downpour, spilling into puddles that flooded the pavement under the large awning over the front doors. There was a minute when Shane only stood there listening. Listening to water beat down and cascade down the storm drain at his feet. Listening to the way the wind and rain made the tall fir trees bend.</p>
<p>Shane looked down the road, or, rather, what he presumed to be a road that stretched out into blackness. He didn’t see headlights or tail lights, he couldn’t hear anything on the pavement but the pounding rain. Shane nudged up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was far too tired for this. He couldn’t even clearly remember what Ryan’s rental car looked like. He told himself that Ryan was probably out parking somewhere and expected Shane to check them in; which was essentially how they worked whenever they filmed on the road. But Shane didn’t think he ever checked them in while he was quite this tired before.</p>
<p>He couldn’t even remember getting out of the car.</p>
<p>Knowing that Ryan would probably be just as exhausted as he was, Shane decided that it was best to check in sooner rather than later and opened the front doors.</p>
<p>The lobby was tall, elegant, and empty. Cream colored columns stretched up the walls, all pointing to a large, glass sculpture of a chandelier, jutting thick broken shards the size of dinner tables in every direction. As Shane stared up at it he could hear a great shattering, imagined in the back of his mind. It was a strange piece to put in a lobby, but Shane figured that he may have been one of the few people who ever bothered looking up. Hotel lobbies can be such transient, liminal spaces that it’s a miracle that anyone can be remotely aware in them.</p>
<p>Shane yawned. The real miracle was that he was still conscious.</p>
<p>He let his gaze drift back down, suddenly aware of a strange sloshing under his feet. Under him was a welcome mat that was entirely saturated with what Shane hoped was water. He looked to see if the rain was dripping in or seeping under the door, only to realize that all the water in the mat came off of him. He was soaked. And he wasn’t soaked in a way that he would have been if he were walking in that torrential rain. He was soaked as if he had just sat in a tub with all his clothes on. Everything was wet and clinging and smelled slightly of an earthy mold.</p>
<p>Maybe he did walk. Shane thought Ryan drove him but, being honest, he wasn’t entirely sure how he got there. Where was Ryan? What hotel even was this? Why would Ryan book such a nice-looking place out in what must have been middle-of-nowhere Oregon?</p>
<p>Shane was far too tired for this and desperately tried to flick the water off his arms and press it out of his hair. It did little good, but it did make water seep through his fingers before he sent little droplets flying across the lobby in a very satisfying way. Accepting that he wouldn’t be properly dried off anytime soon, Shane headed to the front desk.</p>
<p>It was empty and Shane thought it strange that there wasn’t a clock anywhere. Judging by how tired he was, it was probably a little past one. Shane remembered the Weird Wonderful shoot wrapping up at around eight. Then they had a late dinner. They got on the road by 10:30. Shane remembered that they drove for a while before Ryan got lost on their way to the hotel.</p>
<p>Although Shane wasn’t entirely sure if someone would even answer, he tried ringing the little bell on the check-in counter.</p>
<p>“In a moment.”</p>
<p>The voice was muffled behind a nearby door and Shane tried to relax, not wanting to look too impatient and unintentionally insult this poor night manager. He let his eyes wander around the lobby, following the strong lines of the art deco patterns. He smiled at its directness and simplicity, but felt the blood drain from his face when he saw what the lines led to in the middle of the room.</p>
<p>A body lay on the ground, naked and not moving - it didn’t even move with the slow rise and fall of sleeping breaths. It only took one glance for Shane to know that he was looking at a corpse. The body was that of a man a little younger than Shane. Shorter than most men. Muscular. With golden brown skin and jet black hair.</p>
<p>Shane turned back towards the check-in desk and tried to focus on the bell. Intellectually, he knew what he saw; but that didn’t mean that he was able to process what he was looking at. He couldn’t see the man’s face from this angle, so he couldn’t say for sure that it was him, but he knew. It was the sort of undefined but definite knowledge, like when you know you forgot something but aren’t sure what – except it felt far, far worse. </p>
<p>Could he say that the body he saw was impossible and he knew where Ryan was? He couldn’t, and that’s what made his dread begin to choke him. But why was he here? What happened to him?</p>
<p>The door behind the check-in opened and Steven Lim walked out, dressed in the clean, bright suit jacket of a hotel worker. If Shane hadn’t have seen what he just did then he would have paused to think it was strange or he even would have asked Steven what he was doing here. But with who he was sure to be Ryan lying not twenty feet away, Shane was in no state to linger on it.</p>
<p>The last time you saw him was the last time you saw him alive.</p>
<p>Shane flinched away from the thought. Even though he knew it was true he couldn’t accept it. It felt too ordinary. Too hollow. He was reminded of a poem he read once that described the end of the world like any other day, its sameness so resounding that people refused to acknowledge it as the end and went on about their lives in the days and years that followed, unaware that it was all over.</p>
<p>“May I help you?” Steven asked.</p>
<p>“Room for Bergara,” Shane said, mostly from rote, although it surprised him how quickly he grasped at routine when he knew that everything should be different.</p>
<p>Steven looked down at the guest book in front of him, eyes scanning over names. Shane concluded that Steven was why he wasn’t an inconsolable shell of a person, unable to look away from the dead body. Steven must have seen him too. Perhaps they both were in denial. Either way, they followed the script of innkeeper and guest and Shane both despised and took comfort in it.</p>
<p>Steven looked back up at him. “You don’t seem to have a reservation. But we do have rooms available if you would like to check in.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded.</p>
<p>“How long will you be staying?”</p>
<p>No idea. No godly idea. Shane looked down at the check-in counter, pretending to think when in actuality he was fighting the urge to turn around and look at the body again. The comfort of routine curdled the longer he waited, turning “routine” into something inhumanly uncaring. He couldn’t imagine ever wanting to abandon Ryan, no matter what had happened to him; Shane couldn’t be asked to lay out a timeframe for when he would leave the hotel altogether.</p>
<p>Shane glanced up, realized that Steven was still waiting for an answer, and managed to stammer out, “a bit.”</p>
<p>“You’ll be staying for ‘a bit’?” Steven repeated.</p>
<p>Shane shrugged and nodded.</p>
<p>“And how will you be paying?”</p>
<p>Shane reached for his wallet but it wasn’t there. He patted down his pants and jacket, unable to find anything but a waterlogged pencil, which he placed on the counter, and his phone, which didn’t turn on. Nothing else to do, Shane just stood there, staring at the two items and the little puddle that formed around them. His eyes watered and a knot tied in his throat as the reality of Ryan threatened to come crashing down on him.</p>
<p>There was a quiet little part of Shane that whispered, “Maybe I can fix this. Maybe I can make him better. Maybe this isn’t over, I just need a little more time to find a way to bring him back. It’s not too late. He’s still here.”</p>
<p>He knew that what that was implying was nothing short of insane, but at that moment believing in something like that was so much easier for him than accepting that he was gone. Shane looked up at Steven, tears blurring his vision as he waited for a response. If Steven would allow him to live in this fantasy for just a little longer.</p>
<p>Steven studied Shane for a moment before looking down at what was laid out between them. He took a handkerchief from his coat pocket, picked up the pencil, dried it off, opened the till, and placed it inside. Then, he turned the guest book to Shane and handed him a pen. “Please sign here.” </p>
<p>Shane took the pen, unable to speak as his throat felt tight again. It would have been so easy for Steven to turn him away. For as long as Shane knew him, Steven was never one to bend a rule or dismiss his responsibilities for anyone. No matter their circumstances, Shane knew he was seeing a very rare gift. He signed quickly, afraid to look back up and meet Steven’s eyes. Shane feared that whatever emotion Steven felt in that moment would have been too genuine for Shane to face without crumbling and begging for answers and a kind of comfort that he could only find in Ryan.</p>
<p>Steven turned and took out a key, its soft jingle prompting Shane to glance up as Steven unlocked and opened the door to a sliding cabinet that dominated the entire back wall. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of little golden hooks with small plaques above each one. While many had keys under them, many more were simply empty hooks. The hotel must have been nearly full, but as Shane stood still in the quiet lobby he could hear no other guest.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was later than he thought.</p>
<p>Steven pulled over a rolling ladder and climbed up only a few rungs before he reached a little key and came back down. “Room 184,” he said, pushing the ladder aside and closing the cabinet door. “It’s down the hall on the left.”</p>
<p>For the first time since after he saw the body, Shane looked away from the check-in counter, turning to see archways for two hallways, one on the left and one on the right with an elevator between them. He forced himself not to look down at Ryan and turned back to Steven. The key chimed against the little metal medallion it shared a key ring with.</p>
<p>"Thank you," he mumbled. Steven deserved more than that, this he knew, but Shane could barely hold himself together. He knew he should say more. He was going to say more, but stopped when he reached for the key and Steven backed away.</p>
<p>Steven chewed on his lip for a few seconds before meeting Shane’s eyes, brow furrowed. “You have to promise me that you’ll go right to your room.”</p>
<p>Shane thought this was a little strange but nodded. “I won’t go anywhere else.”</p>
<p>“Don’t even look back, just go.”</p>
<p>“Why can’t I-”</p>
<p>“Shane, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” Steven stepped up to the counter again. “I can’t explain it, but I just have this really bad feeling. You know?” He set his hand down and slid the key partway across the desk before stopping, reluctant to let go. “I know… I know who you think is behind you- don’t look! I know.”</p>
<p>Shane stepped as close to the desk as he could, leaning over as Steven’s voice got tighter and quieter. “Is it?”</p>
<p>Steven nodded and then quickly took Shane’s hands in his, key pressing into Shane’s skin as Steven’s grip tightened. “Don’t look. Please, don’t look. It’s so much better for both of you if you just… Shane, this is something that you don’t want to get into.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>“Is he why you couldn’t give me a check-out date?”</p>
<p>Shane could feel his heart jolt, his cheeks stinging. He didn’t know what he was feeling; anger at Steven’s callousness, shame at his own devotion, an incredible ache of losing Ryan that he was too afraid to acknowledge – at least right now. “He’s your friend too, Steven! Why is he just lying in the middle of the fucking floor? Can’t you even be bothered to cover him up at least?! Who is going to take him? I want to be there when they do, Steven.”</p>
<p>“Nobody.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Nobody is going to take him.” Steven loosened his grip on Shane’s hands, flinching when Shane pulled away and the keys clattered onto the countertop. “He’ll stay here.”</p>
<p>“It’s an indignity!”</p>
<p>“There’s nobody to take him, Shane. Nobody here- Shane. Shane, don’t!”</p>
<p>Shane turned away from the counter and faced the body in the middle of the room. With one look all the familiarity he thought he could deny became all the more apparent, from the breadth of his shoulders to the gentle curve of his back.</p>
<p>He had to see him closer.</p>
<p>“Shane, please!”</p>
<p>From behind him, Shane heard Steven rush towards the little gate at the end of the check-in counter and he knew he had to act quickly. In four long strides he was there at Ryan’s side and Steven stopped. Shane knelt and gazed down at his face. Hair tumbled down, partially covering his once-dark eyes, now cloudy and vacant. His full lips set into a slight pout, unnatural on Ryan’s face. There was a dullness to his skin and Shane reached out to put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. He wasn’t entirely sure why he felt like he needed to – perhaps hoping that he could nudge Ryan awake or even just see for himself that he was really there at all.</p>
<p>Ryan was there. His skin was cold and body heavy, resisting the slight push Shane gave before sagging dully back down into place.</p>
<p>“Ryan?” Shane didn’t expect any response and said it only to hear his own voice confirm his fears. “Ryan, I’m here now.”</p>
<p>Steven approached them, his steps soft and easily lost under the percussion of the rain against the windows. “I don’t know what happened to him.”</p>
<p>Shane gently brushed Ryan’s hair out of his face, Shane’s still-wet clothes leaving a trail of droplets across Ryan’s shoulders. “It’s not too late,” he said. “We can fix this. As long as he’s still here, we can fix this, right?”</p>
<p>Steven didn’t respond.</p>
<p>“It can’t be that bad,” Shane continued. “He’s still in one piece. He wasn’t bleeding. We can wake him up, can’t we? Like nothing ever happened.”</p>
<p>When Steven still didn’t say anything, Shane turned to look at him. He was standing there, looking down at them in pity and patience.</p>
<p>“And,” Shane continued, looking back at Ryan, “we can’t just leave him like this. Why didn’t you cover him? Don’t you have a- here.”</p>
<p>Shane pulled off his jacket but Steven grasped at it before it could cover Ryan. Shane was about to retort when Steven gently tugged at it and said, “Shane, it’s soaking wet.”</p>
<p>“He needs something.”</p>
<p>“I’ll have this dried,” Steven said, nodding to the jacket. “In the meantime, you need to go to your room. Don’t worry, I’m going to stay with him. I’ll keep watch tonight, Shane.”</p>
<p>"I don't want to leave him."</p>
<p>"You can barely stand up," Steven said, draping the jacket over the arm of one of the lobby couches. "I promise I won't leave this room. Please, go get some sleep. If you want what's best for him, you'll get some rest."</p>
<p>Shane moved to stand, his reluctant muscles only reminding him of how exhausted he was. He remembered how his tiredness made gaps in his memory already and he weakly looked at the keys in Steven's hand. "I want you to call my room if someone is coming to pick him up. Wherever they're going, I'm going with."</p>
<p>Steven looked up at Shane sadly but nodded, handing him the key. "We'll be here."</p>
<p>Shane took the keys, thumb rubbing against the medallion, warmed from Steven's palm. "Does his family know?"</p>
<p>Steven shook his head. "Things will be taken care of in time."</p>
<p>Shane felt frustration rush past him like a warm breeze, so overwhelmingly present one moment and entirely gone the next. He was too tired to argue and Steven looked like he was in no mood to fight. Instead, Shane stepped away from Ryan’s body and towards the hallway. "Cover him."</p>
<p>"I will."</p>
<p>Shane turned and walked down the hallway. He was only a few steps past the archway when he paused and looked back. Steven was standing over Ryan, staring down at him and a hand resting on Shane’s jacket. Immediately, Shane turned back. From that angle he couldn’t see Ryan and Steven looked too much like a man standing over a grave.</p>
<p>Perhaps he was too hard on Steven, Shane wondered as he continued down the hall. They were both in mourning with nobody else to turn to. Shane didn’t know what to do; neither of them did. It wasn’t until now that Shane realized that someone had shielded him at least partially from every death he had encountered. He saw people fade, he left, he was told they passed, and then later he saw them in the funeral home and said goodbye to them for the last time. That’s how things were for him until now.</p>
<p>And that’s what felt so wrong about Ryan. Ryan was lying in that hidden middle step between death and goodbye. It was enough to trick Shane into thinking that somehow he could take some other path, something that didn’t lead to goodbye but to… he wasn’t sure. Anywhere else, really. Despite everything, he had the feeling that it somehow wasn’t too late.</p>
<p>Shane walked down the hall, taking its turns and watching as the numbers on the doors slowly increased. The hallway was empty and his steps against the carpeted floor were muted, making him feel isolated even though he was walking through a nearly-full hotel. All around him was the sort of quiet and stillness that prompts people to turn their thoughts upon themselves like a mirror. He couldn’t. Not here in the middle of the damn hallway. And so, breaths shallow as tears and anxiousness brimmed, Shane began to run.</p>
<p>The doors stretched on, their cookie-cutter identical appearance making every turn look like the last until there was no difference between ahead and behind. After a while, the numbers faded and Shane wasn’t even sure if there were rooms behind them anymore. He was somehow lost, even though there was no point where he possibly could have strayed from the path.</p>
<p>He was so disoriented and lost that for a moment he stopped thinking of Ryan. He stopped thinking of Steven. He just needed to find his room. There felt like there was an ocean of impossible conflict he needed to navigate, but at that moment he just needed to solve one simple problem: find his room. As easy as that should have been and as much as that should have made him feel all the more helpless, Shane was overwhelmed with a sense of peace.</p>
<p>Find a room.</p>
<p>It was simple.</p>
<p>The first small step. He could worry about what came after it later. Right now, he just needed to do this.</p>
<p>He slowed down, his heart still hammering but already beginning to find its familiar, steady rhythm. When he turned the corner he saw room numbers again.</p>
<p>180…</p>
<p>182…</p>
<p>184…</p>
<p>Shane stopped and fitted the key into the lock, sighing in relief when it slipped in easily. He pushed open the door and turned on the light.</p>
<p>The room wasn’t a hotel room as much as it was a prison cell. The bed was tiny and against the wall. There was a toilet and sink. The single window was built high up and impossibly narrow. The floor was a cold linoleum. Shane sighed. It was as good enough a room as any. After all, it was only him and he didn’t intend to do much more than sleep there.</p>
<p>Shane closed the door behind him. All of his anxiety and pain begged to give way to exhaustion again. Looking at the small bed with the thin mattress, Shane began to think of sleep again. It welcomed him like water, like darkness. Spotting a towel and hooks on the wall, Shane stripped out of his still-soaking clothes and hung them up to dry - his shoes sitting in a little puddle to the side and his glasses on the edge of the sink, dripping. Entirely undressed, Shane ran the towel though his hair and along his body before he leaned against the wall, staring up at the blank drop ceiling. He closed his eyes and remembered what the nightly routine with Ryan usually was. They would lie on their separate beds, scrolling through Twitter or checking their email, sometimes the television set to an old movie or a nature documentary. Some nights they would share a bag of chips, lamenting that they didn’t bring their popcorn and Ryan promising that he would bring his popper next trip, although he never does. They would talk about whatever came to mind until it hurt to keep their eyes open and their minds hummed with need for sleep. There were a few times when they slept side by side, the television still glowing and discussing the habits of starfish.</p>
<p>Shane looked down at the single bed. He wondered how quickly he would have given in and slept on the floor if Ryan were here as he should be. He wondered if they would sleep head to foot instead, cramped but sharing a mattress.</p>
<p>There was a soft sigh as Shane climbed into bed. He could feel the slight push of the springs, but as his bare skin slid against cool sheets the discomforts of the bed seemed to fall away. Perhaps it was because he was alone, but Shane was reminded of that first night home after several weeks on the road. There was a quiet. An unfamiliar stillness.</p>
<p>Shane closed his eyes and pulled the understuffed pillow close to him as he thought of home. He wasn’t ready to go home. There was still too much he would need to explain. No, he wanted to go to a different “home”; the kind of home where Ryan was still only an arm’s reach away.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Because Something is Happening Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Because something is happening here</em>
  <br/>
  <em>But you don't know what it is</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p><hr/><p>There were people outside his room. God knows where they were earlier. How long had Shane been asleep? It didn't really matter, he supposed. If it didn't have to do with Ryan, Shane had a hard time caring. </p><p>He stared up at the ceiling, squinting at the narrow window above him. It was bright outside. It was the brightness of a gray sky, the kind he used to see in late autumn - where the sun was under a thin blanket of clouds and looking up was blinding. Just seeing a sliver of that grayness felt like needles stabbing through his head and into his occipital lobe. He looked away, still too tired to actually move. </p><p>He looked at the door. The hallway was bright too, a white blue glow seeping through the small gaps between the door and its frame. People kept moving and talking. There were carts that rolled past, rattling and heavy with Shane-wasn't-sure-what. He supposed it didn't matter. He closed his eyes and tried to listen to passing conversations, but they were far too brief. </p><p>Before he fell back into a dreamless sleep he heard footsteps approach his door and stop. A woman's voice called to someone far away, "Yeah?" and "I will." Then she too walked on by. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. "Oh My God, Am I Here All Alone?"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You raise up your head<br/>
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"</em><br/>
<em>And somebody points to you and says</em><br/>
<em>"It's his"</em><br/>
<em>[...]</em><br/>
<em>And you say, "Oh my God</em><br/>
<em>Am I here all alone?"</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>There was no way for Shane to know how long it was before the brightness became unbearable. It filled the room and the dark behind closed eyes melted away into red as the light outlined the blurry blood vessels in his eyelids. Shane turned to his side and buried his face in the pillow, not sure why he didn't do that to escape the brightness before. He couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted that he couldn’t move, but that was the only way he could describe what had happened to him earlier. </p><p>He wasn't tired now. Now, he just wanted a few more minutes of dark. </p><p>Hearing people walk by his room was enough to make Shane finally sit up and rub his eyes. Outside was still far too bright and Shane grabbed his sheets and stood on the bed, trying to cover the window above it as best he could. It barely darkened the room, but at least it wasn’t so bright that it hurt to look around. His clothes were hanging in a garment bag, his phone sitting beside his glasses. Shane realized that Steven must have come in at some point and walked past Shane’s nude body to set the phone on the rim of the sink. He tried to ignore the embarrassed flush that came with that revelation as he washed up as best he could. As he toweled himself off, Shane tried his phone. It turned on, but couldn’t connect to the internet or tell him where he was or even display the time. He didn’t even know that a cell phone could flash 12:00 like it was some sort of VCR. He tried to make a tweet about that, but then remembered that he couldn’t and mumbled a string of profanities under his breath.</p><p>Shane dragged his feet getting dressed, dreading the long walk back to the lobby. However, when he opened the door, Shane found that he was only a few steps away from the lobby’s archway. </p><p>If Shane’s hotel room was bright, the lobby was the equivalent of staring into a nuclear blast. Shane shielded his eyes and squinted across the lobby at a thin wisp of a shadow that walked across the room. It reached out for something at the wall and slowly the light began to dim. Shane blinked and squinted at the figure and slowly he began to see Steven and the heavy curtain that he drew across the floor-to-ceiling windows. Shane approached him, but stopped when he reached the little sitting area in the middle of the lobby. Ryan was still there, lying right where he had been and covered in a white sheet that was physically painful to look at. </p><p>“He’s still just lying here,” Shane said, looking at the ground as he tried to adjust to the brightness. It was tolerable now, but his eyes still burned with the afterimage of light.</p><p>“He has nowhere else to go,” Steven said, pulling the curtain into place. “Your jacket is in our coat-check.”</p><p>“I don’t like him being left alone out here.”</p><p>“I’ve been watching over him.”</p><p>Shane placed himself firmly in the shadow of the curtain, rubbing his eyes. “I can’t help but to feel that I’ve missed the memo on something. Somewhere along the line. Nothing’s made sense since last night.” He looked up at Steven. “Do you ever feel like you’re not really alive? Things are happening to you - at you - and you can’t feel. Can’t react. Yeah, you guess at what you’re supposed to say and do, but it feels like you’re acting and everyone’s just too polite to say anything about it. Do you ever… ever feel that way?”</p><p>Steven shrugged as he went to the curtain for the other window, pulling that closed too. “Not particularly.”</p><p>“Oh.” Shane rested his hand on the back of one of the armchairs, picking at the seam in the upholstery as he thought. “Yeah, you’ve always seemed like a very grounded person.”</p><p>Steven hummed in neither affirmation nor denial as he secured the second curtain. The room was darker now, much darker for Shane, whose eyes were still adjusting.</p><p>“I mean,” Shane started, “it feels like people have to know. When you’re feeling this lost, I mean. They have to know that you’re just going through the motions. I don’t know why it doesn’t frustrate them. Like, ‘Hey, dipshit! Feel something!’”</p><p>Steven sighed and shrugged. It was a familiar gesture, at least. It was the kind of thing he did when he was waiting for Shane or Ryan to finish whatever tangent they were on. Shane went back to picking at the seam of the armchair again, deciding to drop the subject. </p><p>"Is your room to your satisfaction?" Steven asked. </p><p>Shane nodded and Steven furrowed his brow. </p><p>"There are other rooms, Shane." </p><p>"Mine is fine."</p><p>Steven sighed again, as if Shane had not only given him the wrong answer, but did it just to be difficult. "None of us get to choose our prisons, Shane."</p><p>"You literally assigned it to me."</p><p>"That's not what I meant."</p><p>"I don't have a single goddamn idea of what you meant. Why are you being so cryptic?" </p><p>"Did you cry?" </p><p>Shane had long ago abandoned the side of masculinity that commanded him to never express emotion, but he still flinched at the question. There was no judgment in Steven's voice, but its matter-of-fact tone unsettled Shane. He didn't know where this would lead and that alone was enough to keep him from answering. </p><p>"Did you cry, Shane?"</p><p>Shane looked down at the seam he was picking at, suddenly finding it very interesting. "No."</p><p>It was true. For all the times he nearly did, his throat tight and eyes watering, tears never actually fell. He hated it. It was like he had been choking and still hadn't been able to take a deep gasp of fresh air.</p><p>"It hasn't settled in yet for you either?" Steven asked, tilting his head at Ryan. </p><p>Shane kept looking at the armchair and shook his head. </p><p>Steven furrowed his brow again and hesitated before putting his hand on Shane's arm. “Take as long as you need. Stay until you… until you come to terms with what’s happening. Until you stop feeling like you’re not alive.”</p><p>Shane nodded, starting to wish he hadn’t told Steven as much as he did. It just seemed to worry him. “Steven?”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“How did I get here?” he asked. “Yesterday, I mean.”</p><p>“I don’t know that, Shane.” He looked down where his hand still rested against Shane and lightly rubbed Shane’s wrist with his thumb before he let go. “What I’ve been doing is trying to absorb myself in my work. That seems to help me. I’m sure there’s something you can find.”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“I know you were filming Weird Wonderful. Perhaps this will help.” Steven reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small flyer. “<em>The Grand Mysterium Breakfast and a Show</em>. Going on in the hotel right now.”</p><p>Shane reluctantly took it, scanning over the images of breakfast foods circling an old-time microphone. “There’s not going to be anymore <em>Weird Wonderful</em> without Ryan.”</p><p>“I’m not telling you to create for the channel. I’m telling you to create for you.”</p><p>Shane sighed. Steven was probably right, but it was still so soon. Not to mention that, without Ryan, everything he was creating collapsed. There wasn’t a single show he was a part of at Watcher or even at BuzzFeed that didn’t hinge on him and Ryan being together. Even <em>The Hotdaga</em> wasn’t a solo project, not really. The thought of creating without Ryan there was physically painful. It was so strange to think that for the majority of his life, he didn’t even know who Ryan Bergara was. He wrote and filmed and made whatever strange thing that came to mind, rarely thinking of anyone at all – only focusing on an idea. That used to be all he needed.</p><p>He finally turned back to Ryan, hoping to find some answers but-</p><p>“No! Stop!”</p><p>An orange cat was at Ryan’s still face, batting and nipping at his cheek. The cat didn’t seem to notice Shane’s yell and kept scratching and prodding until Shane ran up and scooped it into his arms. It looked up at him with wide eyes, so fascinated that there was only a slight hint of a golden iris around blown-out pupils.</p><p>“Obi, no.”</p><p>Obi blinked up at Shane and reached up for him, lightly batting at his jaw and chin. Shane looked down at Ryan, relieved to only see a small, superficial scratch on his cheek. Obi squirmed as he tried to get comfortable in Shane’s arms, stretching and kneeding at Shane’s chest with his claws.</p><p>“How long has he been here?” Shane asked.</p><p>Steven shrugged. “This is the first I’ve seen him.” He smiled up at Shane. “How about you film something with him? I always thought we needed more cat content.”</p><p>Shane looked down at Obi, who finally seemed to relax. “I suppose.”</p><p>Steven stepped in close and scratched Obi’s ears, the purr reverberating against Shane. “Go get some food. I’ll keep watch over Ryan.” He put his hand up to stop Shane from protesting. “If anything happens, I’ll send for you immediately. Don’t worry, he won’t leave here without you.”</p><p>Shane nodded and let Steven direct him to the “breakfast and a show” that was on the flier. It was not too far down the right-side hallway, a large sandwich board standing outside the archways leading into another too-bright room. Once in the light, Obi squirmed again and crawled out of Shane’s arms to cling to his shoulder, Shane squishing Obi’s lower-half against his chest. Shane squinted into the light, his eye gradually adjusting to the room.</p><p>There were people there. They wandered and clumped together, the sound in the room a hum of indistinct conversation. Each of their faces was indistinct in light and shadow, features blending into each other. As Shane walked in they backed away and those closest fell silent. Even if he couldn’t see their eyes, he knew they were watching him.</p><p>They knew he wasn’t like the rest of them.</p><p>Shane tried to ignore them and looked over the room, his eyes resting on a long buffet table that stretched on and on until it was swallowed by light on the far end of the room. Bacon and ham piled in defined mounds that rose like dunes all the way down the table. Beside them were coffee urns or large punch bowls filled with mimosas and bloody marys. Waffles, pancakes, and eggs of every iteration filled the gaps. And then there were the towers of bagels and muffins and scones and pastries, piled high and standing in tall peaks down and down and down the table until they were the last trace of shadow before blinding light.</p><p>For an instant, Shane remembered the morning before a shoot. He got up early to hit the breakfast buffet, let his eyes glaze over while he ate a waffle and pretended to watch the news, and then he went back to the room, carrying with him a few muffins for later. Ryan was there. He was beside him in line, smacking his lips at everything in warming trays. He was next to him, eating sausage links and staring into the middle-distance as he lingered in that headspace that only exists just before fully waking up. He carried hash brown patties wrapped in a paper towel up to the room, leaning against Shane and closing his eyes for the short elevator ride back up. Ryan fell asleep first when they got back, hiding his face in the pillows and pulling the familiar sheet back over his shoulders. Shane remembered being envious of him. He remembered sighing as he realized that he would have to be quiet for the next several hours. He remembered wishing that the rest of his life could just be that exact morning, repeating with little variation over and over and over until one day they both fell asleep and never woke up again.</p><p>Ryan would stay awake for this one, Shane decided as he looked over the endless buffet. He would drink coffee, even though it stopped agreeing with him about a year ago. Ryan would stuff himself until it hurt to eat any more, and even then he would still scan over the selection, wondering what would be best to bring back to their room.</p><p>There was a second when Shane thought, Wait ‘til Ryan sees this. And it took another second for him to even realize that that statement was flawed at all. Was there anything wrong with thinking about Ryan as if he were still alive? It might be unhealthy. But there was nothing <em>wrong</em> with it. Wanting to deny things a little longer didn’t hurt anyone but himself. As long as that doesn’t change, Shane decided, then he could deny to his heart’s content.</p><p>Shane took out his phone and turned on his front-facing camera, making sure that both he and Obi were clearly in the shot before he hit “record.”</p><p>“The world is weird!” Shane said at his phone.</p><p>He panned over to Obi, who had moved to Shane’s shoulders and dug in his claws. He didn’t even blink when the picture moved to him and he looked off into the distance, as if he could see past the constantly-moving shadowlike people and into the bright light.</p><p>Shane panned the camera back to himself. “And I’m taking my curious little cat, Obi, around to explore every last little bit of it!”</p><p>He panned back to Obi, still unmoving and unblinking.</p><p>“We’re at <em>The Grand Mysterium Breakfast and a Show</em>!” He grinned and made as grand a gesture as he could with a cat on his shoulders and a phone in his hand. He spun around to show the whole room, Obi crouching down and digging his claws in deeper. On the screen, Shane caught himself visibly wince at the sudden needlelike stabbing and clicked to stop the recording.</p><p>When he put his phone down the faceless people around him started to talk amongst themselves. Although none spoke to him directly he could hear them.</p><p>“Brought his cat in here.”</p><p>“Who does he think he is?”</p><p>“Does he think he’s funny?”</p><p>“Probably one of those YouTubers who think they’re all that.”</p><p>“Is he even paying for his room?”</p><p>“He’ll probably trash the place.”</p><p>“Isn’t he supposed to have a film crew if he’s such a producer?”</p><p>“I don’t think he’s prepared for this at all.”</p><p>“So unprofessional.”</p><p>“He won’t make it long if he works like this.”</p><p>“A dime a dozen, all of them.”</p><p>“One day he’ll have to get a real job.”</p><p>“Won’t that be a surprise for him.”</p><p>“A rude awakening’s coming.”</p><p>“Anyone could do this.”</p><p>“He looks kind of old for this nonsense.”</p><p>“Does he honestly think he’s funny?”</p><p>Shane tried not to look at them and instead focus on the buffet, petting Obi until he softened his grip. He considered how he would do this for a few seconds before he put his phone in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt and picked up a plate for himself and a smaller plate for Obi.</p><p>“What does he think he’s doing?”</p><p>“That won’t look good at all.”</p><p>“How is he this unprepared?”</p><p>“It’s just sad, really.”</p><p>Shane hit “record” and stared down at the endless spread of food. It was too much. How could he even create a sample of the buffet? He was very much a “one of everything” kind of guy when it came to buffets, but there was such an excess that he wasn’t even sure that this was remotely possible. He fell back on some favorites. Waffle, bacon, breakfast casserole, potatoes, a slice of kringle, a clementine balanced on top of everything.</p><p>“It’s like he doesn’t even want to actually sample it.”</p><p>“Predictable.”</p><p>“Look at all the dishes he didn’t even touch.”</p><p>Shane looked down at his plate, filled and piled high, the mountain threatening to fall. He kept trying to ignore the people’s murmuring, but he couldn’t entirely. Every choice and movement he made he was suddenly hyperaware of. From the smallest microexpression from the way he walked to how he breathed and how often he blinked. He didn’t need to be liked, but could he at least be acceptable? Is his tongue where it was supposed to rest in his mouth? How much was he slouching? He consciously straightened his back and Obi scrambled to stay balanced. He stepped on Shane’s neck and Shane’s head moved forward at an odd angle. Looking up was painful and he knew it looked horribly unnatural. He was tempted to hunch his back until he was almost doubled over, hopefully giving Obi more room so at least it would stop hurting. But he didn’t. He was almost done.</p><p>“Can barely keep himself together.”</p><p>“Why would he bring a cat in the first place?”</p><p>“Does he think he’s being funny?”</p><p>Careful not to walk too quickly or breathe too heavily, Shane approached the small seafood area of the buffet. He was afraid Obi would jump down. He was afraid Obi would start yelling, like he usually did when he was about to be fed. He was afraid of what they would think of Obi. He was afraid that, somehow, Obi would understand them. But Obi didn’t move. Shane wasn’t even sure if Obi saw the fish, but he quickly grabbed some and put it on the small plate, balanced on the crook of his arm.</p><p>“What is he doing?”</p><p>“Unnecessary.”</p><p>Shane quickly grabbed a cup of coffee, not even realizing that it was decaf, and left the buffet, hoping Obi would let him balance everything in his arms. Scattered around the room and surrounding a little stage were small, round tables covered in a bright, white linen. He picked a table close to a raised platform in the middle of the room, empty except for a microphone on a stand. There were murmurs from the faceless crowd when he set down his plates and let Obi climb down onto the table, their offended gasps and whispers underscoring the awkward rustle of chair legs and silverware.</p><p>He pet Obi, who paced around the small table with an expression Shane tried to place. It wasn’t curious as much as it was distressed, perhaps even scared. Some of the patrons noticed this at the same time as he did and he pulled Obi close, petting him and kissing his fur until he stopped making distressed mews. He should take him back to the room so he could calm down, Shane knew that. However, the judgmental and impatient stares from the shadowy faces held him in place. They expected everything to slip out of his control, they expected things to be difficult, they expected him to struggle; but what’s worse is that they didn’t just expect it, they wanted it.</p><p>“I’m here, Obi,” Shane whispered as Obi settled down. “We’re here. Don’t worry about them. I would never let them hurt you.”</p><p>Shane closed his eyes. He tried to live his life with little regard for the low-boiling hostility of others. He wasn’t sure if this came from his years in customer service or something earlier, some childhood obliviousness to the expectations of those around him. When he was expected to lash out, he smiled. When he was expected to give up, he smiled. There were times when he found and embraced nihilism, comforted by believing nothing mattered. It didn’t shield him from everything, but it shielded him from this kind of judgment.</p><p>If he were alone, it would bother him less. He would have smiled at them and waved them away. But with Obi there things were different. Obi was afraid. If Shane were to sit down and pick apart “why” he would have been able to parse out exactly what frightened him. He could have shown Obi that there was nothing to be afraid of. However, this sort of approach had never occurred to Shane. The important thing, in that moment, was that Obi was scared; and explanation would never be as important as comfort. So Shane let Obi hide his face in his chest and he scratched his ears. He kissed his fur and said, “It’s okay, Obi. We can leave if you want to. Whatever you choose, I’m here. I’m here, Little Guy.”</p><p>The nickname was out of his mouth before he realized it. For an instant he was at Ryan’s side in a dark hallway, the two of them staring at a door Ryan was afraid to touch. “It’s okay,” Shane would whisper so Ryan knew he said it for him and not the camera. “Whenever you’re ready, Little Guy.”</p><p>It was a memory, indistinct enough to have been anywhere they filmed together. With it came an odd little tug. It was like there was a fishing line, hooked into his throat and chest and pulling him towards a place he could never go. He tried to ignore the ache, but it lingered; even as Obi curled up on his paws and made himself comfortable on the table. Leaning into the distraction, Shane took out his phone and hit “record” as he scooted the plate of seafood closer to Obi.</p><p>“You have a fancy little breakfast, Obi,” Shane said. “You have salmon and crab and herring. You’re like a happy little prince this morning.”</p><p>Obi stared at his plate for only a few seconds before looking around again and then back up at Shane.</p><p>“It’s fish, Obi.” Shane gently pulled a flake of salmon off the plate and held it closer to Obi’s mouth. When there was no reaction, Shane ate it, hoping Obi would understand. “Obi?”</p><p>Obi partially sat up and rubbed his face against Shane’s phone. The people around them murmured.</p><p>Shane put the phone down and pet Obi. “It’s okay. I don’t need to record it. We can just have breakfast.</p><p>Obi didn’t respond, but Shane decided that he understood anyways. He pocketed his phone and got to eating. The butter dragged in a solid clump over the wells of the waffle, already cold, and syrup puddled around it. The food was neither good nor bad, a flavor that didn’t linger and wasn’t remembered. He ate nearly his entire plate and didn’t even feel full. He glanced over at Obi. At least Obi finally seemed to be enjoying the food. There was a moment when Shane thought it would be alright to bring out the phone again, but as soon as the thought formed in his mind, the room began to darken.</p><p>The blinding windows were covered with a heavy curtain, like the one Steven drew in the lobby, but here it blocked out all light. He heard the scratch of another curtain runner behind him and the light from the hall faded too, the entire room blanketed by darkness. There was the distinct crush of a spotlight’s mechanisms setting into place and the stage in front of Shane was swallowed by light. In the darkness, someone set a small booklet in front of Shane, barely giving him a second to look down at it before a woman in a black velvet dress and a dark veil walked onto the stage.</p><p>Shane took out his phone, resting it against the coffee cup so it would hold still as he hit “record.”</p><p>“Esteemed guests,” a man’s voice said as the woman approached the microphone, “welcome to <em>The Grand Mysterium Breakfast and a Show</em>.” The voice sounded like Steven’s. “This morning, we invite you to listen and reflect on the music we bring. Honored patrons, I am honored to bring you Ms.-”</p><p>Steven’s microphone cut out before Shane could hear the singer’s name, but the singer lifted her head anyways, only her dark red lipstick visible from under the hem of her veil. From somewhere behind her, Shane could hear a piano and strings. They played at a slow pace, the violins and viola playing their phrases together, like they were boats on a sea being lifted by the same waves. But it was delicate. Lingering. When the singer’s lips parted, her voice spilled from her like a sigh. Shane sighed too, the breath pulled out of him just listening to her. It took a few seconds before Shane recognized that she was singing in German. It had been years, but there were some words that he managed to understand.</p><p>“…return to me, my true love…”</p><p>“…you are my light and day…”</p><p>“…heart on heart…”</p><p>“…heavenwards.”</p><p>The singer turned down to face Shane and Shane blinked as a spotlight opened on him. She pointed to the booklet that someone gave Shane. What he had assumed was a program was actually sheet music, the tenor line highlighted. He looked up at her and shook his head, but she did not respond and instead waited, holding out her hand in either a cue or some offering he didn’t understand. He looked down at the music and, getting to his feet, he hesitantly sang the short phrase. The line was in German and he could pronounce it, but was hazy on the translation in the moment. The last word, however, was “song.”</p><p>The singer nodded and continued. Shane listened, not expecting to understand the phrase as clearly as he did:</p><p>“The song of true love,/ that must die.”</p><p>The singer nodded for Shane to sing again. He did, glancing over notes and his voice clumsily following as his mind was preoccupied with translating as well as he could.</p><p>“I know the song./ I heard it often in younger times,/ in prettier days.”</p><p>The strings continued playing, still rising and falling on the swell of their waves. Shane scanned down the page. There was more to sing yet, but as he read his thoughts snagged on a line of the English translation printed small at the bottom.</p><p>“Death will not separate us.”</p><p>Shane shook his head and looked up at the singer, who stood waiting for him. For the first time since the song begun, Shane was aware of the audience. They whispered and hissed among themselves, voices cutting through the music.</p><p>“Of course he couldn’t.”</p><p>“Waste of everyone’s time.”</p><p>“I never thought he was funny.”</p><p>And then,</p><p>“Christ, is he still thinking about him?”</p><p>Shane picked up his mug of lukewarm coffee and threw it into the darkness and towards that last voice. The mug shattered against the floor, followed by a wave of people rising from their seats and shouting at him. From across the room, Shane could see the faint outline of the curtain the covered the hallway. He picked up his phone, took Obi into his arms, and started to leave, stopping when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the singer, kneeling on the stage and staring down at him.</p><p>She tilted her head, eyes still obscured by her veil. “Es hat noch eine Strophe. Wirst du sie wissen?”                                                                               </p><p>“I can’t do this.” Shane softened his voice as he stepped towards her. “Everything keeps coming back to him. I can’t do this. I can’t be this broken. Please tell me that things will start making sense. It’s not that I want to live without him, but what if I can’t? What if he’s so much a part of me that I died with him? What am I supposed to do?”</p><p>She reached down and lightly touched his cheek, a pained smile on her lips. “Ich weiß sie noch.”</p><p>Shane shook his head and backed away as he watched a tear fall past her veil. “I… I don’t understand you. I’m sorry, but I don’t… Ich kann dich nicht verstanden. Es tut mir leid.”</p><p>The singer nodded and stood, looking out at the crowd that had started to approach Shane, their indistinguishable voices biting. She opened her mouth and breathed Shane’s part, her voice like a calming fog rolling over the sprawling room. The crowd settled and Shane could see the hallway light again. He walked slowly, not knowing if anyone would turn their attention from the stage.</p><p>
  <em>Naht auch Sorge trüb,<br/>
</em>
  <em>rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb.</em>
</p><p>Shane’s breaths were heavy as he focused on just putting one foot in front of the other. He tightened his hold on Obi, not wanting anything to keep them from leaving a quickly and quietly as possible.</p><p>
  <em>Neig dein blaß Gesicht<br/>
</em>
  <em>Sterben trennt uns nicht.</em>
</p><p>He stepped around tables and between people, transfixed on the singer. The sliver of light grew larger as he approached and finally he was able to feel the heavy black velvet curtain against his hand.</p><p>
  <em>Mußt du einmal von mir gehn,<br/>
</em>
  <em>glaub, es gibt ein Auferstehn.</em>
</p><p>Shane pulled aside the curtain and the next thing he knew he was alone in the bright hallway. He was holding Obi close, listening to a soft purr against his shoulder. The sheet music Shane didn’t realize he was still holding wrinkled between his palm and Obi’s back. Nobody followed him.</p><p>“Let’s go back to my room, Obi.”</p><p>Shane walked back into the lobby, stopping when he saw Ryan propped up on the couch. He approached. Ryan was still dressed in a sheet, the white fabric draping over his shoulders and wrapped around him. Shane looked around to see that they were alone in the lobby before sitting down next to him and setting Obi down.</p><p>“Ryan?” Shane asked, reaching out and touching his arm. “Can you hear me?”</p><p>Ryan didn’t respond, his cloudy eyes staring forward, unfocused. His skin was cold and Shane rubbed his hand against him, the sound of their skin like sandpaper.</p><p>“I don’t know how to do this, Ryan.” Shane gently tugged Ryan’s arm out from under the sheets, the fabric cascading off his shoulder and pooling over his lap. He tried to take Ryan’s hand in his, trying to ignore how unresponsive and physically cold he was. He rubbed at his hand, trying to warm it too. “Do I need to start over? Is everything I do so dependent on you that it all stops here?” He looked down at their loosely intertwined fingers. “Everything. All at once. Why does it have to happen all at once? How am I supposed to pick myself up when I’m still trying to be with you?”</p><p>The lobby was silent. Even the room Shane came from was quiet. Ryan said nothing. Shane never expected any response from him, but every minute of silence still weighed on the persistent ache in Shane’s chest.</p><p>“I’ll still try to be with you,” Shane answered. “I’m not giving up.” He looked at Ryan. “It’s your own damn fault, you’re the one who taught me to believe in ghosts.”</p><p>Ryan stared forward.</p><p>“I miss you.”</p><p>A door slammed and Shane looked up to see Steven step out from behind the check-in desk.</p><p>“Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused in there?” Steven demanded, his cheeks pink and brow furrowed. “Breaking things? Starting fights? Shane, this isn’t you! What happened back there?”</p><p>“It’s not my fault that the other patrons of this hotel are assholes.”</p><p>“I don’t care if they’re a-holes, Shane. This isn’t about them!”</p><p>Shane ran his thumb along the side of Ryan’s hand. “I can handle them talking about me.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. “But not about him.”</p><p>Steven sighed and carded his fingers through his hair, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. When he lowered his head his expression was softer. He picked up Obi from the couch cushion and sat down beside Shane, setting Obi on his lap. “It’s hard for most people to separate you two in their minds. Even I can’t entirely imagine one of you without the other.” He reached across Shane’s lap and put his hand over Shane and Ryan’s. “This will take time.”</p><p>“I haven’t given up on him.”</p><p>“I know.” Steven gave the side of Shane’s hand a hearty pat. “He trained you well, didn’t he?”</p><p>Shane smiled sadly down at where their hands met. “He sure did.” He looked over to Steven. “What happened to him?”</p><p>Steven shrugged. “Only you know that, Shane. I’ve been trying to figure it out myself.”<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Shane tilted his head back and stared up at the chandelier, letting his eyes trace its jagged edges. “I don’t remember.”</p><p>“It’ll come to you.”</p><p>He sighed and looked back down at Ryan’s hand, reluctantly accepting that it wasn’t at all warmer. “I’m going back to my room.”  </p><p>“After what happened at breakfast, I think that would be best.”</p><p>Shane let go of Ryan’s hand and picked up Obi again. Obi mewed and squirmed, clearly reaching his limit of being handled. Still, he carried him out of the lobby and into his room. Nothing had changed in his short time away, the sheet still covered the window and the mattress was still rumpled. Shane closed the door and set Obi down, who immediately hid under the cot-like bed. Shane carefully sat down on the mattress and looked at the sheet music and phone for the first time since the performance. The page was heavily creased and the phone was still recording. Shane hit “stop” and sighed, leaning back against the cold wall. He clicked back through what he recorded, listening in silence.</p><p>“<em>The world is weird! And I’m taking my curious little cat, Obi, around to explore every last little bit of it!</em>”</p><p>He smiled sadly at the recording, Obi’s eyes distant and wandering. He was a good cat. As complicated as things were, Shane was happy to have done this with Obi there. The thought of doing this alone still felt horribly wrong.</p><p>He clicked through and watched his performance, out of focus and pitchy. Shane wondered if practice would have made any difference, things being as they were. He watched as he picked up the phone and left, the singer muffled as the microphone pressed against Obi’s fur. He heard his own heavy breathing, image still dark as he entered the lobby and talked to Ryan.</p><p>Despite his better judgment, Shane turned up the volume and held the speaker to his ear.</p><p>“<em>Can you hear me?</em>” he heard himself ask.</p><p>Shane closed his eyes and listened to the white noise of the silence. It lasted a few seconds before Shane heard himself speak again and immediately rewound to, again, “<em>Can you hear me?</em>”</p><p>He tried to imagine how Ryan listens to these type of recordings. For all the years they worked together, Shane knew he had only seen a small fraction of all the work Ryan puts into finding recordings that he thought were convincing. Shane regretted not listening closer to them. He resented the way his mind filtered out small little noises to the point where it was like they didn’t even exist. He tried to think the way Ryan thought, listening for words in the shifting of fabric and the settling of wood.</p><p>As he listened, memorizing each small sound he could hear, Shane fell back onto the mattress. At one point, Obi wandered out from under the bed, put a paw on the door and mewed. Shane squeezed his eyes shut tighter as he tried not to hear it.</p><p>“I need you here,” Shane said, startling slightly at the sound of his own voice. “I need you to stay here, Obi.”</p><p>He buried the side of his face into the pillow and kept listening through Obi’s cries. “<em>Can you hear me?</em>”</p><p>Perhaps, if he listened long enough, he could convince himself that he heard “yes” somewhere in the way the electricity hummed in the chandelier far above them.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"Glück das mir verblieb" by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Paul Schott.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. But Something is Happening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>But something is happening</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And you don't know what it is</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p><hr/><p>Shane had fallen asleep at some point, his fingers still loosely holding his phone. Obi was quiet and probably found someplace to curl up and nap. Again, Shane didn’t even have the energy to move. There was a strange, overwhelming tiredness that had been claiming him recently, making his limbs feel heavy. But, all things considered, it was the least of his concerns. If anything, it was probably related to what he was going through with Ryan; so draining and taxing that there were times when Shane couldn’t even move.</p><p>The bright light that made his eyes ache had dimmed, replaced with a cold and familiar grayness. In the hallway there were still people walking, as there had been the last time he slept, but there were fewer. The gaps between individual people’s footsteps grew further and further between.</p><p>Eventually, the halls were quiet and Shane drifted back to sleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. You Hand in Your Ticket</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You hand in your ticket<br/>
</em>
  <em>And you go watch the geek<br/>
</em>
  <em>Who immediately walks up to you<br/>
</em>
  <em>When he hears you speak<br/>
</em>
  <em>And says, "How does it feel<br/>
</em>
  <em>To be such a freak?"</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Shane woke up cold and blindly groped over the mattress looking for a blanket before remembering that it was hanging over the window. He sat up and tugged it down, looking out to see a heavy fog. Although he still couldn’t tell where he was, he was grateful that whatever caused the bright light had seemingly passed. He lay the sheet back out on the bed and looked over to see Obi asleep in the sink. Shane got to his feet, stretched, and scratched Obi’s ears.</p><p>“Do you still want out, Obi Man?”</p><p>Obi turned to look at Shane for a brief moment before lying back down on his paws.</p><p>“Suit yourself.” Shane scratched his ears again. “I’m gonna go find Steven and see if I can learn anything else. I’ll be back later.”</p><p>Obi didn’t respond but still purred softly when Shane bent down to kiss him on the head.</p><p>The halls were empty, as was the lobby. The large curtains on the opposite side of the room were pulled aside, a heavy fog almost entirely obscuring the forest across the road. Shane approached the vacant couch and chairs in the middle of the room, remembering Ryan lying out on the rug with his hair swept over his face.</p><p>He wasn’t really dead, Shane told himself again. He was more than sleeping, but he wasn’t dead, not really. Which meant that not seeing him there was concerning, to say the least. Steven promised that he would tell Shane if anything happened to Ryan, but Shane still didn’t like not knowing where Ryan was.</p><p>Shane approached the check in desk, about to ring the bell but stopping when he saw a small sign that read, “Setting up for <em>Cirque du miroir</em>. Will return in 30 minutes.” Beside the sign was a stack of small fliers.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR<br/>
</em>The fantastic 10-in-1 circus!<br/>
One Night Only: Arial performance by the Eye of Providence Acrobatic Troupe</p>
  <p>The End of the Right Hallway</p>
</blockquote><p>Shane picked up the flier, considering. Steven did say that he wouldn’t let Ryan out of his sight; so perhaps Steven took him with him when he went to the <em>Cirque du miroir</em>. As hesitant as he was to follow another flier, Shane had to admit that he was curious. Perhaps, as long as he didn’t try to film anything, the other patrons wouldn’t talk about him.</p><p>He made his way down the hall, quickening his pace as he passed the archway leading to the buffet he had seen earlier. In his glance in, it looked empty, cleared out after serving its morning purpose. Still, he pushed the place from his mind, not wanting to think of the people or the song. The sheet music was still in his room, assuming Obi hadn’t shredded it or eaten it. He had fallen asleep without reading the translation of the entire song. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to see it.</p><p>It didn’t take long for Shane to reach the end of the hall, a pair of double doors that looked oddly simple and modern for a hotel like this, with its large windows and ornate chandelier. Shane pressed on the door, part of him expecting to hear an alarm, as if he had opened some emergency exit. No alarm came, but still, Shane stopped as he stared past the doors.</p><p>He knew this place.</p><p>Pale green I-beams extended from the carpeted floor to the slanted ceiling. The ceiling lights that lined the curved hall buzzed quietly. Hanging from the exposed iron rafters were large banners with black and white photos of baseball players.</p><p>Wrigley Field. </p><p>Shane had worked there for a few summers in his late teens. Strange how it hadn’t seemed to change at all.</p><p>“Madej!”</p><p>Shane turned to where he heard the voice and saw his old boss standing beside the snack bar. He too didn’t seem to have aged at all. His frowning mouth and square jaw only added to his stern expression. However, from what Shane could remember, he was a good boss.</p><p>“Yes, sir?”</p><p>“Circus has set up center field,” He said, nodding towards the large archways leading out into the stands. “We need you to go down there and make some sales.”</p><p>Shane's boss pointed at an apron and hat folded up on the counter. Beside them was a vending tray piled high with bags of popcorn. Shane smiled at the arrangement and wondered if he would find abandoned popcorn bags after his shift, like he did when he worked in a movie theater.</p><p>Shane put on his uniform, the hat still a little too small for his head, and pulled on the tray's harness. In the short time it took to get ready, his boss had already disappeared. Still, Shane went out the archway and looked out over the field.</p><p>Set up just beyond the baseball diamond was a tall red and white striped circus tent. All around it were little platforms, a performer on each one with guests wandering between them. There was a calliope wagon set up near the tent, its whistles shrilling a tune that was clearly audible even halfway across the stadium. The smell of fried food and sugar permeated the air and Shane was briefly reminded of summers on Navy Pier in Chicago. He made his way down the stands and through a small gate, his feet touching the green of the baseball field for the first time. He allowed himself to look back. He allowed himself to imagine himself, as Ryan might have imagined himself, as a player on that field. He imagined the stands full and thousands of people screaming at him. He shuddered and quickly turned back to the circus.</p><p>He could never understand sports.</p><p>Shane approached the crowd. Like nearly everyone else Shane had seen at the hotel, their faces were indistinguishable. However, at least here they didn’t seem to be upset with Shane being there. A few came up and bought popcorn, but most ignored him. Shane preferred it that way. Despite his line of work, Shane had never been particularly extroverted, often relying on Ryan or Steven to take the lead in making connections. So he was grateful that at least he wasn’t expected to say anything here. He could allow himself to fade into the background – at least, as much as his height would allow him to.</p><p>As he wandered the crowd, selling popcorn, Shane began to approach the circus acts set up outside the tent. They each had their own little platform with a sign next to it. He approached the nearest one.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR</em> PRESENTS:<br/>
THE CONTORTIONIST!<br/>
WATCH as our fabulous contortionist folds himself into your heart. He has traveled across the country in his little suitcase just to find his true love. He’ll bend over backwards for you!</p>
</blockquote><p>Shane looked to the small stage, only a small, round suitcase sitting on a table in the middle of it. Slowly, the suitcase tilted and fell over, the lid popping loose. An arm stuck out, unfolding joints in a long, luxurious stretch. Then came a leg, long-boned and slender. The contortionist pulled himself out, his head bowed away from the audience as he rolled his shoulders and carefully rotated his ankles, quiet pops of joints falling back into place barely audible with the calliope playing so near. Once he was able to stand steady, he climbed off the table, his back still to the audience. When he reached the edge of the stage, the contortionist stretched, extending his spine as much as he could before he gracefully dipped back, folding himself in half backwards.</p><p>When Shane saw his face he felt his stomach drop.</p><p>The man was wearing a mask. A mask that looked exactly like Shane. Everything from the sad curve of his eyes to the strong profile of his nose was so disturbingly present. It was grotesque in its accuracy; but, as Shane looked around, it seemed as if he was the only one affected by it. The man blinked at Shane, barely visible through the holes in the mask, and Shane took a step back.</p><p>The contortionist stretched out his arms, balancing before lifting himself up, legs and spine coiling around each other. He looked back at Shane and Shane turned away. Shane didn’t know what it was or if it even meant anything, but he didn’t like it. Shaking his head, Shane went to the next performer.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Fire Eater!<br/>
How does he stay so cool?! Most people can’t stand the heat, but our fire eater can’t get enough of the stuff. He can face the hottest, meanest stuff, and come out with a smile!</p>
</blockquote><p>Standing on the stage was a man wearing the same mask the contortionist was, but the bottom half was carved off. He picked up an unlit torch and grinned, white teeth glistening under bright red lips. He scanned over his small crowd before he turned to a woman with a cigarette. Still smiling, he held out the torch to her, the audience watching as she took out a lighter and the end of the torch went up in flames. He spun the torch around a bit, the fire trailing after itself in large arcs that made the people standing too close back away. And, as easily as anyone would put a lollipop in their mouth, he closed his lips around the fire. Then he picked up a bottle of vodka sitting nearby, took a swig, tilted his head back to the audience, and breathed fire. The flames were so bright and hot that for a few seconds Shane felt like his entire face had been sunburnt. The fire eater waited until everyone had stopped covering their eyes before taking a little bow and spinning the unlit torch around, waiting to start again.</p><p>Shane made sure none of his popcorn was singed before making his way to the next and most crowded stage.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Small Man!<br/>
This sweetly diminutive gentleman is exactly who you’re looking for. He can live in a teapot and sleep in a matchbox! Why don’t you stick around and chat? But only for a <em>little </em>while!</p>
</blockquote><p>Shane straightened his back and looked down over the heads of the audience to see an elaborate, old dollhouse. Sitting on a tiny armchair in a room not too much larger than his phone, was a small man who was wearing an impossibly small version of the mask the contortionist had. The man leaned back, sipping on a drop of cognac from a tiny glass. He put his feet up on the head of a mouse-skinned rug. Leaning against the wall was a book that was about half the size of a playing card, but still much larger than the small man. It was propped open - tiny font written on onionskin paper – and it looked as if he had been interrupted mid-page.</p><p>Shane was nudged out of the way by one of the patrons, the swarming crowd all trying to get close and ask the small man questions. Shane had questions too. There was so much he wanted to know, but he kept getting pushed back, farther and farther, until eventually he was standing outside the crowd and pushed over to the next performer.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Tall Man!<br/>
Towering over the crowd, he’s the 10,000 foot tall man! How this man grew to his incredible size will forever be a mystery to both religion and science. He’s all you see!</p>
</blockquote><p>Shane looked to the stage and saw the legs of the performer. Looking up, he saw a thin man who must have been about ten feet tall. He too wore the mask. He shared the crowded stage with a stool as tall as Shane and a table that was even taller. Steps led from the ground to the tabletop, the wandering guests making their way up to take pictures of themselves with the giant. Although Shane couldn’t see his face, the giant looked patient through all this, content to sit and be gawked at. At least people liked him. Shane looked up at the mask. Did he look bored?</p><p>Shane shook his head, thinking that he should move on before he started reading too much into it.</p><p>“Did you like my Bigfoot?” called a voice.</p><p>Shane looked over to see a small green and purple tent instead of a platform. Standing outside it was a man who also wore the mask, looking at Shane and gesturing at the tall man. Shane read the sign that stood beside the tent.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Believer!<br/>
He has crossed the world to bring back mysteries that defy comprehension!</p>
</blockquote><p>The man, the Believer, gestured at the tall man again. “I said, did you like my Bigfoot?”</p><p>Shane shrugged and nodded. The Believer’s voice was the only one that carried over the constant strains of the calliope.</p><p>“He’s only the start to my amazing collection, my friend. We have fantastic odd people from all around the world. But, you look like a gentleman of discerning taste; I want to show you something special.” The Believer opened the flap to his tent and motioned Shane in. “C’mon in! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, you would be a fool to pass this up.”</p><p>Shane didn’t even hesitate before he let himself be guided in. As skeptical as he was, he did enjoy a good story. It reminded him of car trips he took with his family as a child, his parents occasionally humoring him and Scott by stopping at one of the various “mystery spots” that dotted the Midwest. They were small shacks of houses with rooms where everything was nailed to the ceiling or rooms that were built at odd angles to make it look like you got bigger when you walked further into them. Places with strange taxidermy and old carousel horses. They were tourist traps and snake oil, but Shane loved them. There was always a moment where he would look up at an old television bolted to the ceiling and wonder if, somehow, he really was hanging upside down, dangling down into a living room. The moment would pass practically instantly, but it was there. For flashes of moments, it was all real.</p><p>It was dark inside, only lit by Christmas lights that spiraled out from the central pole of the tent. Standing on a table on the far side was a large wooden box covered with a golden sheet.</p><p>“It happened when I was sleeping with my sweetheart on a hammock,” the Believer said. “There was a strange noise that woke us and then a flash of light. Across the sky – WOOSH – this ball of fire. Landed in the woods not too far from our cabin. Well, we went over to see what exactly that was. Do you know what we found?”</p><p>Shane smiled and shook his head, feeling that he may actually know exactly what they found.</p><p>“There, stuck in the mud between the trees, was a genuine space craft. A little one. Like an escape pod or something.”</p><p>Shane looked at the wooden box.</p><p>“Yes, we found an escape pod, but that’s not what we have here today. You see, there was this air force base not twenty miles away, and we figured they’d be looking for this thing. So we left the pod. What we didn’t leave was <em>what we found</em> inside.”</p><p>The Believer motioned Shane over to the table and pulled the sheet off the box. There, lying under a pane of scuffed, dirty glass, was the small body of an alien being. For an instant, that’s exactly what Shane saw. There was a moment where he couldn’t see the jagged edges of its mouth, constructed from shoddy papier-mâché. There was a moment when he couldn’t see the spot near the ear that missed a coat of paint. There was a moment where he didn’t know that the glass was dirty on purpose, to keep people from looking too closely.</p><p>Still, Shane smiled at the Believer, who, even though his face was covered, looked quite proud of himself.</p><p>“Thank you,” Shane said.</p><p>“Thank <em>you</em>,” the Believer said, motioning Shane out of the little tent, but then stopping. “You know, Shane. Some days you will have to decide what’s more important: a great truth told by many small facts, or a small lie, told with a great amount of love.”</p><p>Shane stared at the masked man as he was ushered out. “How did you know my-”</p><p>“-You there!” the Believer called to a couple who was looking at the Tall Man. “Do you like my Bigfoot?!”</p><p>Shane watched the Believer as he moved on to the next patron. “How did you know my name?” </p><p>There was no answer and Shane didn’t linger long before he began wandering. There were other acts yet. There was a snake charmer, teasing venom as the small audience applauded, their phones out to record. There was a man hanging from hooks. Not as many people approached him, but Shane stood and stared for a while. Both this man and the snake charmer wore the mask, but there was something about the expression on this mask that seemed different. It looked tired, perhaps a little sad. He didn’t seem bothered by the hooks tugging at his pale skin – his expression was with something else entirely.</p><p>“Are you alright up there?” Shane asked, stepping close to the stage.</p><p>The man said nothing and instead only sighed, slow and deep. “I think,” he said, voice barely audible over the calliope, “there are too many.”</p><p>“Don’t you need a lot to stay up?” Shane asked, nodding at the two dozen hooks.</p><p>“I think there are too many.” He sighed again, the hooks and wires moving slightly as his ribs expanded and contracted with the breath.</p><p>Shane took a step back and decided that he would rather be left alone.</p><p>The next act was in a red and black tent, a little larger than the Believer’s. The sign next to it read:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Sword Swallower!<br/>
You may have thought it was impossible, but not for the man with the incredible mouth! Watch and be amazed as he opens his throat for blade after blade. All the way to the hilt!</p>
</blockquote><p>Hesitant, and not without a glance over his shoulder, Shane looked in the tent. Inside was crowded with men and women, all gathered around a small stage with the sword swallower sitting with his legs straddling the back of a chair. Like the fire eater before him, he wore a half mask, the similarities to Shane’s face still strikingly undeniable. The walls of the tent were obscured by racks with dozens of swords, long and short, broad and slender. Everyone watched as a man looked over the wall, thinking carefully before he picked out a sword that was roughly the same length as a bread knife. He brought it to the sword swallower, who gave him a coy smile.</p><p>“You spent a long time over there, Gorgeous. Were you looking for your size?”</p><p>The audience laughed as the man stammered over himself, stopping only when the sword swallower held up a hand.</p><p>“It’s alright,” the performer said. “I only tease.” He thought about this for a second and laughed. “That’s literally all I do.”</p><p>The audience laughed and Shane smiled, nervous. Should he be seeing this? The sword swallower looked directly at him and Shane felt his cheeks and the bridge of his nose grow hot with a dark flush. He didn’t have time to reconsider. The sword swallower tilted his head back and took the blade into his mouth, the shining metal disappearing until the hilt of the blade rested on his lips. The crowd applauded and whistled, crescendoing as the sword swallower got to his feet and motioned the man who brought the sword close to the stage.</p><p>The crowd shifted, everyone simultaneously trying to get a better look as the sword swallower lowered himself to the stage floor. Shane stood up as tall as he could and craned his neck, only just being able to see over gaps in the crowd. The sword swallower kept beckoning the man closer until the man’s hips were nearly against the stage, the sword’s pommel touching the front of the man’s pants. The audience laughed and hooted, some shouting words of encouragement, all sound dissolving into cheers when the man put his hand on the back of the sword swallower’s head and gripped his hair. After a few seconds, he let go and the sword swallower sat back on his feet, pulling the sword from his throat.</p><p>The sword in his hands, the sword swallower examined the blade before proclaiming, “The twenty-five centimeter sgian-dubh, everyone.” He smiled and looked down at the man. “Really?” His grin broadened. “And that hair thing was nice touch. You know what? Meet me after the show.”</p><p>The audience applauded and laughed their approval, attention shifting as a couple of women brought a longsword to the stage. Shane’s face warm enough, he turned and stepped out of the tent, gasping in cool air. In his short time in the tent, it was already starting to get dark, the sky purple and pink and gold. He breathed deep again, remembering the summer festivals in Chicago and Milwaukee, the scent of popcorn, beer, and cigarettes lifting through the air. He smiled and, after a lingering moment lost in memory, looked down from the sky. His eyes settled on a large, glass, water tank, a man in a straightjacket suspended upside down inside it, wearing the mask. There was a sign next to him.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Escape Artist!<br/>
Amaze at the death-defying acts of the Escape Artist! Watch as he tempts fate and beats impossible odds. He shouldn’t even be alive, but here he stands! This isn’t magic, folks! This is real life!</p>
</blockquote><p>Shane watched as the escape artist slowly moved in his straightjacket, shifting his shoulders and turning his spine until the arms came loose. The closed-off sleeves and straps attached to them floated freely in the water, dragging lazily along the glass. Hand mitten-like under the sleeve, he reached into the pocket of his slacks, fumbling around until he finally found what he was looking for – a small piece of paper. He looked up at Shane and held the paper against the wall. The ink was slightly blurred in the water, but the two lines written were clear:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>Mußt du einmal von mir gehn, </em>                  If you must leave me one day,<br/>
<em>glaub, es gibt ein Auferstehn.                     </em><em>Believe, there is a resurrection.</em></p>
</blockquote><p>Shane read the scrap of paper and looked back to the escape artist, who had already shed his straightjacket and righted himself. The two watched each other, the escape artist’s face entirely obscured by his mask. Shane hesitantly reached for the glass and the man backed away, his hair moving like seaweed in the water.</p><p>“Can you breathe?” Shane asked.</p><p>The escape artist didn’t answer, instead staring at Shane with his head tilted slightly. When Shane was about to ask again, the escape artist pointed at something to his left. Shane followed his direction, looking to see a small stage, another man with a half-mask resembling Shane’s face stood in the middle of it, talking to a crowd. Shane turned to the escape artist again, but a curtain had been drawn over the tank. Shane looked around, but, not seeing anyone, decided that the escape artist had disappeared, and went to the final performer.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><em>CIRQUE DU MIROIR </em>PRESENTS:<br/>
The Geek!<br/>
Dare you look at the horrors of the Geek? This disgusting creature spits in the face of a civilized world. But yet some can’t look away. The lowest common denominator. Isn’t this where everyone ends up?</p>
</blockquote><p>Shane approached the stage. The crowd was sparser than the crowds at the other performances, but there was an odd intensity about them. They didn’t have the curiosity or humor of the other groups. They were grinning and glaring, fingers curved like talons and twitching, like they were trying to hold themselves back from clawing at something. They were furious, so overwhelmed with rage that they could hardly move.</p><p>Shane turned to leave, but stopped when he heard a voice far too similar to his own speak from the stage.</p><p>“Don’t hide from it! Stare! Everyone stares! Don’t you want to see how it ends?”</p><p>One of the crowd grabbed Shane by the arm and turned him to face the stage, another person in the crowd taking Shane’s other arm and holding him still. Shane looked at the two people beside him, gripping him hard enough to leave bruises. Thankfully, they didn’t look at him; their eyes were transfixed on the Geek.</p><p>“It ends for everyone,” the Geek said. “And it ain’t beautiful. Especially not for people like you.”</p><p>“What do you mean, ‘people like me’?”</p><p>The Geek scoffed. “Look around. Any stage, every stage. Does it end well for them? I’ll tell you how it ends, it ends with them sad and alone. There will come a time when nobody will want to watch you contort, or charm, or even suck on anything. There will be a time when you will only be thought of by a few people, and they all will remember me.”</p><p>“You don’t know who I am.”</p><p>“Don’t I?” The Geek stepped back and considered the audience, still vibrating in an immobilizing fury. He grinned at them, teeth silver and sharklike. “I’ll throw your dogs at the <em>fucking wall</em>!”</p><p>The crowd booed and screamed back, rushing to the stage and reaching for the Geek. Shane was dragged along with them, the hands on his arms digging nails into him. Small clots of dust and dirt were pulled from the ground and thrown at the man on stage. Rocks. Beer bottles. The Geek was unfazed.</p><p>“Want some more? I can make them up,” the Geek said, voice hitching slightly, like he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Kill Jesus!”</p><p>The jeers grew louder, so loud that Shane winced and tried to pull away from the sound alone. Under it all the Geek laughed.</p><p>“You haven’t said it yet, but someday you’ll find something. Someday, you’ll find just the right words to make everyone fucking hate you.” He picked up one of the cigarette butts thrown at him and took a drag on it. “Or will you be the pathetic kind? Where you make a confession because you <em>want </em>people to hate you. You’d think you did the right thing because if enough people hate you, you <em>deserved </em>this, you think this is atonement. Well, I’ll tell you one thing I know: We don’t get to choose our own prisons.”</p><p>Shane froze, staring up at the jagged smile and expressionless mask. “What are you talking about?”</p><p>“Look, I’m not here to spell shit out for you. If you don’t know how you’re punishing yourself then that’s your own damn problem. Just don’t come crying to me when your ‘I deserved this’ doesn’t turn out the way you want.” He turned away and approached a structure behind him, as long as the stage, as tall as him, and covered with a large tarp. “Now, who wants to see a show?”</p><p>The Geek tugged down the tarp and revealed dozens of birdcages, every bird screaming and beating their wings against the thin bars. He opened the door to one of the cages and reached in, taking out a green parrot. The bird pecked at his thumb, screeching as large, heavy hands wrapped around it, pinning down wings. The Geek turned to the audience and grinned again, causing another wave of shouts and thrown dirt. He opened his jaws and lifted the bird up towards sharpened teeth, saliva forming strands into a cavernous mouth and thick tongue.</p><p>“No!”</p><p>Shane wrenched his arms out of the grip of the crowd and tore off his popcorn tray, unsold bags scattering around the enraged audience as he shoved people away long enough so he could climb onto the stage. Hands followed, grabbing at the cuff of his pants as he ran towards the Geek and collided his fist hard with the side of the Geek’s head. The Geek stumbled and let go of the bird with one hand and grasped at where Shane punched him. Shane stood in shock, shaking and his hand hurting. He had never thrown a punch before in his life and he was sure that it wasn’t painful as much as it was surprising. Still, it wasn’t until that moment that Shane really thought about how little there is between skin and the skull. It was the solidity of bone that made his knuckles ache.</p><p>The bird pecked at the Geek’s thumb again. Wing beating and beak carving a bloody notch into his hand, the Geek let go and the bird was in the air and gone. Shane watched it go, part of him wishing that it wouldn’t fly far. He remembered the bird he once had, the warmth of talons wrapped around his finger and the way he would eat oranges and cherries out of Shane’s hand. Lost in memory, he did not anticipate the Geek backhanding him across the face, sending him stumbling backwards to the cages. Quickly, impulsively, Shane turned and started opening cage doors. Birds freed themselves in a cloud of feathers, red and blue and black and white. The final bird out of its cage, Shane turned back to the Geek and was immediately grabbed by the neck and dragged to his feet.</p><p>“You think you can stop this?” the Geek asked. “You think there’s damage control?”</p><p>Shane struggled to breathe as he was pulled across the stage and lifted over the crowd. They clawed at his legs, pulling him against the hands around his throat.</p><p>“I’ve given this show so many goddamn times. The birds? ‘Kill Jesus’? It’s all so tame compared to what really happens. What all this does to people. They’re the monsters. They’re all monsters eventually.” He tilted his head as he watched Shane fight for breath. “And even if you somehow never sharpen your teeth on anyone, you’ll still be a freak. That’s what you are. A goddamn freak show.” His grip tightened. “How can you fucking stand it?”</p><p>Shane was thrown into the crowd, but only landed on the dirt. He doubled over, coughing for breath and gasping in what he could. His throat ached and the rasping breaths made it hurt more. He turned back to the stage, but it was empty. The crowd was gone and the sky was dark.</p><p>Shane got to his feet, slowly as he gathered his breath under him. He picked up the popcorn tray he had torn off and took it under his arm. There was only one bag of popcorn that landed right-side up. He took it and carried it with him to the lights of the big top and the crowd that filed in.</p><p>The big top was lined with bleachers surrounding two trapeze platforms on opposite ends of a large net. Shane scanned over the audience and saw Ryan, propped against the back row of some bleachers and still wrapped in a sheet. Shane went to him. If anyone looked at him oddly for joining an unmoving body in an otherwise empty section, Shane didn’t notice. He sat down beside Ryan and nestled the popcorn between them.</p><p>“Strange night, hmm?” Shane asked, leaning against the back railing.</p><p>The bleachers filled, a few of the patrons even spilling over into Shane and Ryan’s otherwise empty section. Shane was quiet as he waited for the show to start, not even touching the popcorn. He and Ryan had never been to a circus together; but, then again, Shane hadn’t been to a circus since he was a very small child. It was probably some of the last years of circuses with animals before everyone collectively realized what a bad idea that was. Still, he did love seeing the tigers.</p><p>“I’ve missed you, Ry.”</p><p>There was no answer. Shane didn’t expect one. He ran this thumb along the scalloped edge of the popcorn bag as he thought, unsure of what to say but not wanting to keep silent.</p><p>“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Shane asked, leaning slightly towards Ryan. “Am I why you’re like this?”</p><p>The lights dimmed and from unseen speakers around the tent, Steven announced the Eye of Providence Acrobatic Troupe. There was applause and Shane joined in, light-hearted music pouring from the speakers as three men climbed onto the trapeze platforms.</p><p>“I mean, I don’t know what happened to you, Ryan. But I want to find out. If it was me, I won’t hide from it. I won’t deny it. I won’t try to make it out to be anything it isn’t. I just… I miss you so much, Ryan.”</p><p>The acrobats swung in long parabolas from one side of the big top to the other.</p><p>“I can’t pretend that I can just go on with my life after losing you. I’m going to find out what happened.”</p><p>They walked the tightrope, carefully balanced or climbing hand over hand, they travelled the length.</p><p>“And what happens if I don’t find an answer? If you’re unsolved too? What should I do? I can’t accept that there’s no answer, Ryan. I know I have before, but those cases were different. They weren’t you, Ry.”</p><p>Each of the three acrobats climbed into large metal hoops and were lifted high into the air, spinning madly as they soared over the gasping audience. They swung close enough that Shane thought that if he reached out he could have brushed his fingertips against theirs. He remembered the amazed little noises Ryan makes when he watches things like this. He remembered them on the roller derby rink and at Knotts Berry Farm.</p><p>“You liked whatever made your eyes widen,” Shane said, watching as the acrobats and hoops rose up to the very top of the tent. Colorful lights streaked across Shane’s face as twirling stars were projected over the audience. “I mean, most people like that. But you really latched onto it. Anything, even if it scared you… you clung on.”</p><p>The acrobats tangled themselves in long ribbons of fabric, spinning down and holding tight as they danced in the air and wove themselves together.</p><p>“You liked living more than most people. Lots of people just reluctantly tolerate it. For even more people, it’s just something to do. But you, you embraced it. Sometimes I was jealous. I wanted to get lost in all this. I mean, not all the time, but sometimes.”</p><p>The fabric pulled into an elaborate knot, the three performers climbing down the excess and landing gingerly on the net. They climbed back up to their platforms and swung on rings back and forth, tumbling in the air.</p><p>“I’m going to figure out what happened.” Shane looked over to Ryan, a line of gold light sweeping over their faces. “There are gaps in my memory, Ry. And I’m afraid of them. I mean, I don’t think I did this, but what if I did?”</p><p>One of the three performers slid his legs through two of the rings and used himself as a trapeze for the other two, chalky hands gripping tight to arms and leaving small clouds of dust in floating trails behind them.</p><p>“You were braver than me. I always said that about you. If I think something would actually hurt me I… stay away. I know that’s what I’ve been doing. Have I been trying to accept loss, or have I been running from it? I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore. But it’s not working. I can’t accept that this is all there is.”</p><p>Two of the performers clung to each other, one climbing up the other until he too was holding onto the rings. Their rhythm slowed as they gently swung together, not soaring for the audience, but merely clinging onto each other. Shane instinctively reached across himself, grasping onto his own arms. An odd relieved pain hummed beneath his skin as he watched them, not wanting to think about exactly why this hurt the way it did.</p><p>“I’ll do this for you. Or for both of us, I suppose. I need this too.”</p><p>The two acrobats moved from ring to ring in a shared rhythm, their motions so familiar that it was like they never existed as two separate people. Muscle was cast in sharp relief under the lights and Shane glanced over to Ryan. There were only a few times when Ryan had ever hugged him. Once was shortly after they and Steven made the commitment to Watcher, when things were starting to take shape for their company. They had gone out for drinks and Ryan’s Uber had just driven up when Ryan turned and buried his face in Shane’s chest. It only lasted for a few seconds, but in that short time Shane could feel all of Ryan’s anxiety and doubt, squeezing out between them and, Shane hoped, replaced with something better.</p><p>“I know this sounds crazy, Ryan, but can you stay with me tonight? This place is kind of unsettling and… erm… given how things are right now this sounds insane, but I do feel safer when you’re here. Besides, I like knowing where you are.”</p><p>The music that had been constant throughout the performance faded to a stop, but the two acrobats kept moving, propelled by something that could only be in a shared internal. The lights came up, there was applause, but the acrobats didn’t come down. Instead, one grabbed onto the fabric they had knotted earlier and swung to a stop, the other acrobat still clinging to his partner. They dangled in the air, unmoving except for heavy breaths as the audience got up and filed out of the big top. The third acrobat, long forgotten by the other two, climbed off the platform he was perched on and left. It wasn’t long before the only people left in the tent were the performers, Shane, and Ryan. The performers, only one still holding onto the fabric, slowly lowered themselves down to the net below. They lay at each other’s side, one partially climbing on top of his partner and resting his head against his chest.</p><p>“Shall we?” Shane asked.</p><p>There was no response from Ryan as Shane tried to figure out how to do this. True, he could pick Ryan up, but not for very long and he never carried him before. Ultimately, he decided to use his popcorn tray to help with some of the weight. Thankfully, Shane was able to carry enough of Ryan so that the tray didn’t immediately snap as Shane picked him up. He carried Ryan down the bleachers, past the acrobats, and out the tent; a bag of uneaten popcorn all he left behind.</p><p>The walk back was quiet and dark. Nobody was left at the sideshows and the stadium was completely empty. Every once in a while Ryan’s sheet would brush against Shane’s leg and he had to stop and make sure that it wouldn’t somehow get underfoot. The hotel seemed empty too, not even Steven there to greet them when they reached the lobby. That was alright. They were almost where they both needed to be.</p><p>When Shane opened the door to his room Obi was curled up on his pillow, his sleep interrupted by footsteps and the door locking behind Shane and Ryan. Shane carefully set Ryan down on the bed, sighing in relief when he could finally let go. He took off the popcorn tray and shoved it under the bed, standing up and stretching before he propped Ryan up so he sat against the wall, still censored and surrounded by a sheet.</p><p>“He’s staying here tonight,” Shane explained to Obi as he made sure Ryan wouldn’t fall off the bed. “I don’t want to wake up to you nipping at his face or any other part of him, okay?”</p><p>Obi crawled across the bed and sniffed at his arm.</p><p>“You know Ryan. You like Ryan.” Shane scratched Obi’s ears. “I know he hasn’t been able to make any social calls recently, but you remember him, don’t you?”</p><p>Obi climbed onto Ryan’s lap, kneeding at the sheet before lying down.</p><p>“There you go,” Shane said, giving Obi’s ears another scratch. “I knew you remembered. You’re a smart boy.”</p><p>Shane looked at Ryan, his eyes still cloudy and vacant, staring forward. Shane reached out and gently closed them. He paused, fingertips trailing over Ryan’s cheeks as he studied his expressionless face.</p><p>Shane got up, stretching again as he turned off the lights, toed off his shoes and socks, and climbed into bed. He folded his legs under him awkwardly as he tried to get comfortable, pillow hard and folded under his head. He pulled the sheet over his shoulders and closed his eyes; feeling, for the first time since he arrived, that he was moving in the right direction.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. And Something is Happening Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>And something is happening here</em><br/>
<em>But you don't know what it is</em><br/>
<em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Shane’s sleep was shallow and dreamless, as it had been ever since he arrived. Time didn’t seem to matter here, it must have been late when it happened. When one second he was curled up to make room for Ryan and Obi and the next second he lay flat on his back, heels resting at the far end of the mattress. He tried to look around the room but could not turn his head. He tried to call for Ryan and Obi, but he could not speak. His breaths were labored and his eyes could barely open. He heard footsteps in the hallway. He heard them stop in front of his room. He heard the door open.</p><p>Shane focused all his energy on opening his eyes and turning to see who walked in, but he couldn’t move any part of his body. A foot. A finger. Just something that could signal that he was awake. That he was alive. But he lay as still as a corpse.</p><p>A hand closed around his wrist and lifted his arm, resting it on something hard and plastic that Shane couldn’t see. From the small, blurred sliver of vision that Shane had, he could see the face of the person who took and turned his arm. It was a woman. Her eyes were half-closed with dark circles under them, like she hadn’t slept in days. He could see the collar of a hoodie, dirty and gray. She poked at his flesh, digging her fingers hard against Shane’s inner elbow and inner forearm. He tried to pull away, but couldn’t. As he felt the cool rub of alcohol against his skin, he wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t.</p><p>Why are you here? Just tell me why you’re here.</p><p>Then he felt a needle, a small point break the skin and settle into a vein. His heart began to race and he tried to pull away again, still unable to move. He didn’t want to think about what it might be. If it was what he was afraid it could be, he didn’t want to think about what that would mean.</p><p>Why are you doing this?</p><p>The woman didn’t even look at him, her tired eyes focused solely on his arm. After about a minute, Shane wondered if it even was a needle in him. But that doubt didn’t last long. Radiating out from the spike in his vein, Shane felt an odd warmth sweep through him. Then came a moment when he couldn’t even realize that he was living his greatest fear. He was lost and Ryan was dead and it was okay. He would be okay. He could even relax into the security of his own immobility, his own helplessness. Let someone else take care of him.</p><p>It’s wrong.</p><p>The thought floated through his head like a speck of dust hanging in the air. He knew it was wrong, but he wanted to hold on despite the long-held fears that screamed at him through his sudden contentment. Failure was an option. Anguish was an option. In that moment, no matter what Shane feared he would find, it didn’t seem to matter.</p><p>This is wrong.</p><p>The woman set Shane’s arm back down on the bed, still neither looking at him nor saying anything as she left the room. Shane watched the hall light glow against the ceiling for a few seconds before closing again to darkness.</p><p>How could he accept this?</p><p>Let go.</p><p>It couldn’t be real.</p><p>He was happy.</p><p>How could anyone stand this?</p><p>Go to sleep.</p><p>Go to sleep. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. You Have Many Contacts Among the Lumberjacks</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You have many contacts<br/>Among the lumberjacks<br/>To get you facts</em>
  <br/>
  <em>When someone attacks your imagination</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>When Shane woke up he was folded on his side again, Ryan still propped against the wall. Shane sat up and looked down at his arm. He was sure that he would see a puncture mark, but there was nothing; no scab, no bruise. He ran his fingers over his skin, smooth and ivorylike, save for the few strands of soft, dark brown hair. Maybe he did dream. Maybe it was a nightmare. Sleep paralysis. When Ryan talked about sleep paralysis he always talked about ghosts and demons, but Shane supposed that the brain could conjure anything that someone was afraid of. There was a reasonable explanation.</p>
<p>Still, he hated how quickly his drugged mind, even his imagined drugged mind, abandoned Ryan to his fate.</p>
<p>Shane got up and heard a rustling under the bed. Obi crawled out of the popcorn tray and walked to the door, putting his paw on it and mewing.  </p>
<p>“Okay, okay,” Shane said as he lifted Ryan off the wall and lay him down on the mattress, pulling the other sheet over him, but only up to his shoulders. “We’ll go on a little walk.”</p>
<p>Shane went to the door, looking back at Ryan before he left. He was briefly reminded of all the times he woke up early and left to find coffee, sneaking out of the room and hoping that he didn’t wake Ryan up. He was so careful to let Ryan sleep that he didn’t even put on shoes until he got into the hallway. That was their morning; far more often than getting breakfast together, that was their morning. Shane told himself that now was no different from then. That he just needed to go and let Ryan sleep for a little while longer.</p>
<p>Shane walked out into the hall with Obi, closing the door behind him. Obi, seemingly knowing what he wanted, went directly to the lobby, Shane following a few short steps behind.</p>
<p>“Good morning.”</p>
<p>Shane looked over at Steven, standing behind the front desk.</p>
<p>“Ryan stayed with you last night?” Steven said, his voice bordering statement and question.</p>
<p>Shane nodded. “I thought that was for the best. I was worried about him. We’ll need more blankets, by the way.”</p>
<p>“I hope you know what you’re doing.”</p>
<p>“So do I.” Shane looked down at a basket of fruit on the check-in desk and picked up an apple. “Obi’s restless. Do you know where we could walk around here?”</p>
<p>Steven sighed, his expression suggesting that he wasn’t done talking about Ryan. Shane knew this and silently promised that they would talk more later. Right now, he needed to clear his head.</p>
<p>“Out the doors and to the left there’s a path around the hotel,” Steven said, nodding at the large, glass entry doors. “It leads to our garden. But be careful if you wander too far off the path. The forest is pretty dense and it would be easy to get turned around and lost. And you may want to take your jacket.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and thanked Steven, who held out his jacket. Shane took it, buttoning up before he turned to see Obi with his paw on the door. Shane walked over and pet him, opening the door and following Obi out. Obi only got a few steps out of the hotel before he stopped and looked around.</p>
<p>Under the overcast sky, the forest was dark and seemed to stretch on forever in all directions, the road and hotel only a short interruption in an endless sprawling. There was a gray mist that hung in the air, making everything cold and damp. Shane looked around and saw the path Steven was talking about. It was woodchip-lined and had dark wooden railings, the entrance marked with a streetlamp, shining a faint golden light.</p>
<p>“C’mon, Obi,” Shane said as he walked to the path, the grass brushing dew onto his shoes and socks.</p>
<p>Obi followed, hesitant in the grass at first, but soon following Shane. There was a soft, quick brushing sound as Obi rushed through the grass after him. Shane looked down at smiled at Obi as the cat tried to shake himself dry once he got to the woodchips. The woodchips and wooden railing were soft to the touch, as if they had been waterlogged after it had been raining for days.</p>
<p>Shane led Obi down the path, stopping every now and again when Obi fell behind, batting at snails and worms on the wet ground. The path itself was too close to the woods, dark pine branches occasionally reaching out over the path. It was hardly what Shane would call scenic. The leaves and pine needles created a wall beside the path, a wall close enough for Shane to touch. Usually, Shane loved the outdoors, but there was something about the path that was just as unsettling as the inside of the hotel. Every so often, Shane would hear rustling just behind the green wall, but he never saw anything that could have caused it. The longer he walked, the more apparent it was that there were no animals besides Obi, the invertebrates he found on the ground, and the constant hum of insects. There was not so much as a chipmunk, or even the sound of birds.</p>
<p>The other side of the path was overall nondescript. There was only so much that Shane cared to observe about the smooth walls of the hotel, interrupted by the occasional vent. Although, Shane did start to think it odd. At some point, he should have seen the large windows of the breakfast buffet or the curve of the stadium. This was the correct side of the building for that. But the windows and the stadium never came. Odd, it was something he only realized in retrospect. As did he only notice the increasing height of the shrubs in retrospect. With each step, the hotel’s peculiar familiarity seemed to slip away. When did this path turn? When did he leave the hotel’s side?</p>
<p>There were dense green walls on either side of him now. He turned around and saw the path curve in a long arc behind him, the dim streetlight no longer visible.</p>
<p>Shane picked up Obi, holding him close as he looked back and forth down the path. Each direction looked identical. He didn’t like it.</p>
<p>“Steven said there’s a garden,” Shane said, more to assure himself rather than anything else. “Then there’s a garden.”</p>
<p>He carried Obi along the path, quietly making plans for if it ever forked. However, it never did. Instead, it kept arcing, the forest more and more overgrown. The trail slowly became muddier and the railing had chunks that had either broken off or were spouting mushrooms. He wished he knew how long he had been walking. He wished there could be another streetlamp, just some sign that he was on the right path. He did what he had done earlier when he first tried to find his room: cleared his thoughts and focused on getting where he needed to be, but that did nothing. Eventually, he slowed down and shifted Obi onto his shoulder. He was hungry. He leaned against a section of railing that wasn’t too dilapidated and dug into his jacket pocket, finding the apple he had forgotten he had taken earlier. He bit into it.</p>
<p>“I don’t know how he got here,” Shane said as he chewed. “I don’t know how you got here either, but I really don’t understand Steven. He never struck me as someone who would get caught up in all this.”</p>
<p>He took more bites out of the apple and pet Obi.</p>
<p>“You know, despite everything that’s gone wrong the past day or so, I just keep thinking that, if Ryan were here, this place wouldn’t be too bad. If I could have done that brunch with Ryan, if I would have gone to that circus with Ryan – really with him – then this would have been okay. Hell, it could have been fun. And I think that’s something I would have thought even if I weren’t mourning him. It’s just that… him being the way he is right now makes it so much worse.”</p>
<p>Shane knelt down and let Obi jump from his shoulder to the ground.</p>
<p>“I don’t know if he would have thought the same about me.” Shane paused, eating as he thought. “You know, I don’t think he would. I’m not saying that he wouldn’t miss me if anything happened, but… I don’t know. I don’t think that it would hurt him like this. Maybe the whole ghost thing would make it easier for him to accept, like I wouldn’t really be gone.”</p>
<p>He watched as Obi caught and ate a spider.</p>
<p>“Or maybe we just mean very different things to each other. I mean, just look at Watcher, look at Unsolved. Ryan has ideas that work without me. He can… he can do that. And you know what? That’s good. We don’t have to be co-dependent; that’s not even healthy. It’s good if… if one of us isn’t co-dependent.”</p>
<p>He looked down at Obi, who didn’t seem to be paying attention.</p>
<p>“I’m not the sort of partner who’s all, ‘What? You can’t have projects that don’t involve me!’ I don’t do that. That’s awful, that’s toxic. It doesn’t bother me. He’s allowed to have his own work, his own life.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down at the apple core he held in sticky fingers.</p>
<p>“I just… I just wish that I can be part of that life a little more.” He stopped, realizing what he had said. “That I could have been part…”</p>
<p>He sighed and tossed the apple core into the trees, it disappearing almost immediately under the foliage. Shane looked down at Obi, who was restless again as he tried to hunt for and eat more bugs. Without a word, Shane motioned him along and continued down the path. It was dark and overgrown, but Shane didn’t mind. He needed a moment to think, but not of anything new. As always, his mind was with Ryan, the fantasies of what he had wanted curdling into regrets. He remembered once hearing that ‘you can’t regret things you never did’ and decided that that particular maxim was bullshit.  </p>
<p>Shane’s thoughts were far away when the path finally ended in a clearing. The grass was a little overgrown and there was an old patio set sitting out in the middle of it. There was a small pond surrounded by reeds, orange and red koi just barely visible through the green. There was a tree with a tire swing. Shane looked around.</p>
<p>“This is my backyard.”</p>
<p>Although it looked a little neglected, the garden did look almost exactly like the backyard of the house he grew up in in Schaumberg. He walked out to the middle of it and turned, looking, everything exactly where he had remembered it. The backyard was small, fenced off and butting up with neighbors (here, trees) on three sides, but that did nothing to minimize the years he spent playing in that familiar space.</p>
<p>“Obi, I-”</p>
<p>Shane stopped himself when he looked down to see that Obi wasn’t following at his heel anymore. He scanned over the yard until he saw a flash of a pale orange tail, disappearing into the trees that marked the property’s edge.</p>
<p>“Obi?”</p>
<p>Shane followed after the cat, awkwardly stepping over shrubs and ducking under branches. With each twig Shane was further and further away from the oasis of the familiar. Steven's warning picked at the back of his mind and Shane walked faster, Obi still only an orange blur under the leaves. For a while he had himself oriented. He knew where the garden was and how many steps it took to get back. But, after so many turns around trees that all started to look the same, Shane wasn't as sure as he once was.</p>
<p>Then, just as suddenly as the garden had appeared before, there was a new gap in the forest. It was dark and there was a break in the mist, revealing a clear, starlit sky. Fireflies floated on the soft breeze, their bioluminescence looking like comets when Shane watched them from below.</p>
<p>Shane and Obi both stopped in front of a large felled tree, an ax sticking out of the trunk. It pointed to the stump it was severed from, which was filled with a small pool of water, reflecting stars and fireflies. Curious, Shane approached it and heard something. It was music, muted and lost under indecipherable chatter. There was the clink of glass against glass. Of ice against glass. When Shane looked into the water he could see the length of a bar, and saw faces that were once so familiar sitting along it, drinks lifting to their lips. They were his former co-workers back at BuzzFeed. God knows how many times they had all gone out like this and Shane still felt that he didn’t truly know some of them. Shane sat beside the stump and watched them.</p>
<p>“Hey.”</p>
<p>The image in the pool pivoted, as if swirling on a barstool, turning to see Ryan. He was a lot younger. Clean-shaven, dressed in a loose button-up, his hair cropped a little too short. This was a vision of Ryan from before he started working out, his shoulders narrower and arms slender. It was strange looking at him and thinking that, at one time, he was the only version of Ryan Shane knew. Ryan smiled and all the sound in the room dampened for a fleeting moment, a moment that Shane clearly remembered accompanying a skipped heartbeat. Up until that moment, Shane was sure that people’s hearts didn’t actually skip a beat when they saw someone they were supposed to spend their life with. Shane didn’t even realize what it meant at the time, writing it off to a long day of editing and a little too much bourbon.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Shane heard himself respond.</p>
<p>“Thanks for agreeing to come out tonight,” Ryan said, climbing up on the stool next to him. “Are you having a good time?”</p>
<p>There was an instant where Shane couldn’t respond. It was like there was a glass over Ryan’s face that had shattered and Shane could truly see him for the first time. His mind was bombarded with small details about Ryan that he had never truly seen before. His eyes were different from what Shane remembered. Shane told himself that it was the light and the drink, but he couldn’t deny that, in that moment, Ryan’s eyes looked so beautifully and infinitely dark; like they could have held galaxies.</p>
<p>The vision tilted up and down, a quiet nod. Shane smiled at the vision, the memory, the memory of his mouth feeling dry and awkward.</p>
<p>“We’re not that bad,” Ryan said, smile teasing as he leaned against the bar. “You should come with us more often.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be presumptuous.”</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t be.”</p>
<p>The vision pivoted again as the bartender approached them. “Are you gentlemen doing alright? Can I get you anything?”</p>
<p>“Do you have any popcorn?” “Can we have some popcorn?”</p>
<p>The questions came out simultaneously and the vision snapped over to stare at Ryan, who stared back. There was a beat of silence before Ryan laughed. Shane laughed too, partially out of amusement but mostly in surprise at the way Ryan threw back his head and wheezed laughter, his mouth a wide chasm and smile lines carving deep on his cheeks and around his eyes. He remembered wondering why he had never seen him like this before. Why Ryan became, in that moment, someone he couldn’t look away from.</p>
<p>Ryan grinned and climbed up onto the stool beside Shane. “Who are you, Shane Madej?”</p>
<p>“Usually when people say that, I say, ‘One of a kind,’ but I don’t think I can now.”</p>
<p>Ryan laughed again and Shane remembered feeling his cheeks sting with blush. Although they were brought in as interns at the same time, Shane couldn’t say that he knew Ryan well. This, he realized in that moment, needed to change.</p>
<p>The vision faded until it was merely a dark reflection of distant stars, glinting in the low light. The sounds of the bar quieted to a stop and Shane got to his feet. There were multiple felled trees, each with a water-filled trunk. Shane walked among them. Some of them reflected brief moments in time, nearly-forgotten instances of the countless times they had made each other laugh. He paused, looking into a trunk. The vision was shaking with Shane’s own laughter. Ryan’s face was in his hands as he bent forward. When he came back up, his cheeks were red and wet with tears, hand over his smiling mouth as his shoulders shook. Shane smiled down at the vision, the moment that was shared between them, hardly unique compared to the many around it, still meant so much to him.</p>
<p>Shane looked at another tree trunk. They were in an airplane, heading back to L.A. from Kansas. Ryan had leaned against Shane and fell asleep against his shoulder. It would have been easy to pull away, for Shane to have let Ryan fall awake as Shane leaned against the window and closed his eyes. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he tilted his head, cheek resting against Ryan’s hair. Ryan didn’t seem to acknowledge it, his breaths already deep with sleep. That was how Shane fell asleep, slightly uncomfortable but breathing in the soft, faded scent of a hotel shampoo that his memory had never been able to divorce from Ryan.</p>
<p>“You’re just being fucking stubborn at this point.”</p>
<p>Shane looked up. The voice came from another stump, not too far away. Shane approached it, not wanting to really think about the memory it came from.</p>
<p>“I mean, there’s skepticism and then there’s purposefully being obtuse.”</p>
<p>“‘Obtuse’? You can’t possibly be serious with what you’ve given me as ‘evidence.’”</p>
<p>“Do you not hear a voice? I said, ‘Our names are Ryan and Shane, can you say our names back to us?’ and then we get this!”</p>
<p>“It’s a little click sound. Maybe a branch knocked against the window. Maybe something electric turned on. This doesn’t mean anything.”</p>
<p>“You just don’t want us to collect any evidence at all! You’re just trying to make me look like an idiot by refuting everything.”</p>
<p>“Hey, you don’t need any help from me.”</p>
<p>Shane wasn’t looking into the pool of water in this particular tree trunk and he was glad for it. He didn’t need to see it again to clearly remember Ryan’s face in that moment. The way his eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly, looking like he had just been struck across the face. They called each other idiot all the time, it was practically a term of endearment, but Shane learned in that moment to never ever bring that name anywhere near Ryan’s beliefs. He should have known that already, he should have known better. Ryan pursed his lips after that initial shock and took off his headset, setting it down a little too roughly before walking out of the recording booth. The door didn’t slam shut, which somehow only made things worse for Shane. Shane must have stood alone in that booth for about twenty minutes, wanting to be angry but unable to feel anything but an incredible disappointment in himself.</p>
<p>“Our names are Ryan and Shane, can-”</p>
<p>As he stood beside the tree trunk, Shane sighed, listening to his past-self switch off the recording; not wanting to confront just how much it hurt to hear Ryan’s voice in that moment.</p>
<p>Shane's own voice from another trunk asked, “More coffee?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Shane looked over at that trunk. He saw Ryan sitting at their shared desk, staring at his monitor and pointedly not making eye-contact with him. Shane sighed as he stared down at the memory. The argument he just re-lived had left a sour air between them for the next few days. They avoided each other, working from laptops or home, depending on how much they wanted to hide from what had happened. Childish? Perhaps. But Shane didn’t want to think about what Ryan must have thought of him. The fear of that betrayal, that righteous anger Ryan must have felt, preoccupied Shane's mind and made him physically ill.</p>
<p>Ryan didn’t look like he was faring much better, the dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced than they usually were. Shane had sat down in front of his own monitor, staring blankly at the article he had pulled up for Ruining History. He kept scanning over the same line, unable to focus on anything but the man beside him.</p>
<p>“I don’t think you’re an idiot for your beliefs,” Shane said, looking down at Ryan’s hand as it loosely rested against his mouse.</p>
<p>Ryan was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Then what do you think I’m an idiot for?”   </p>
<p>“I don’t think you’re an idiot at all.” Shane stole a glance at Ryan’s face. Ryan didn’t seem all that interested in whatever he was working on either, instead staring at Shane’s hands as they lay motionless over the keyboard. “I think I’m an idiot for saying that to you. For making you think that I don’t respect you as much as I do.”</p>
<p>They were silent for several seconds; long enough to make Shane think that perhaps Ryan wasn’t going to respond at all. He wouldn’t have blamed him if he wanted more time to think it over.</p>
<p>Ryan sighed, not looking away from Shane’s hands. “I shouldn’t have called you ‘obtuse.’”</p>
<p>“Dude, that was no excuse for me to-”</p>
<p>Ryan held up his hand and Shane stopped.</p>
<p>“I mean,” Ryan continued, “you have your beliefs and I have mine. That’s… that’s the show. That’s how we work. We both know this.” He sat away from his computer and finally looked Shane in the eye. “I mean, if my evidence isn’t enough, I shouldn’t take it as a personal slight if you don’t accept it.”</p>
<p>Shane shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself for this. I’m the one who took things too far.”</p>
<p>Ryan smiled sadly up at him. “How about we just leave the question of who’s the bigger asshole here ‘unsolved’? I don’t think we’re ever going to agree on this one.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded, sighing deep as he felt the weight that was suffocating him for the past few days begin to lift. He let the moment linger between them for a few seconds before asking, “Wanna do another movie night?”</p>
<p>“Friday at your place again?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“I’ll bring the beer if you make the popcorn.”</p>
<p>Shane watched as the memory faded. Years had passed since that happened, but Shane was still relieved to see them recover from it. They were a frightening few days, the fear of losing Unsolved and Ruining History paling in comparison to the fear of losing someone who he had come to see as his closest friend. They had never really talked about it and Shane still blamed himself; but at least it was over.</p>
<p>Shane kept walking among the tree stumps, catching quick snippets of memories. Laughter. Ryan watching a documentary as they sat in the hotel room together. Occasionally he heard an argument, none getting as bad as that first big one. The good far outweighed the bad.</p>
<p>“I can’t believe they moved us to a bigger hall.”</p>
<p>Shane heard that and his heart skipped a beat. He immediately turned to the stump where he heard Ryan’s voice coming from, kneeling down beside it so he could see clearly.</p>
<p>“I thought the overflow would have been, what, twenty people or something,” Shane heard himself say.</p>
<p>“It was packed!” Ryan plopped down on the bed closest the door and lay back, staring at the ceiling. “I still have little blue dots in my eyes from all the pictures.”</p>
<p>“Me too.”</p>
<p>“Why did so many of them have their flash on? The lighting was fine.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Shane rubbed at his eyes, trying to make the flash afterimages go away. “Should we order room service? Continue treating ourselves like fancy little lords?”</p>
<p>“I kinda just want Taco Bell,” Ryan said, sitting up. “But yeah, I also kinda want to just… chill for the rest of tonight. Go over all the Twitter and Instagram tags.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and took the room service menu out of the nightstand between their beds. “Let’s see what they’ve got. Hell, let’s break the bank and order some drinks too.”</p>
<p>“Now, I like the sound of that,” Ryan said in what Shane could only think of as his ‘Cowboy Voice.’</p>
<p>Ryan got up, stretched, and walked over, looking down at the menu for a few seconds before he sat down next to Shane on the bed. He was so close that their thighs pressed against each other, Ryan leaning over to look at the menu in such a way that his chest was against Shane’s arm. There was a time when Ryan would never do this, when he would pull back from every touch, announcing to Shane and anyone within ear-shot that any contact was purely accidental. Shane wasn’t even entirely sure when Ryan stopped doing that. It was gradual. However, Ryan still wasn’t the hugging type, so this closeness seemed like it came out of nowhere. Shane chalked it up to how well the convention went. He felt it too; there was an excitement between them that manifested in an odd buzz that made Shane feel like he could turn around, do the entire convention all over again, and return to his bed eight hours later not even remotely tired.</p>
<p>In that moment, they could only direct this energy at each other.</p>
<p>Shane moved the in-room dining menu so it was on both their laps. Ryan hummed his appreciation and Shane stared blankly down at the page, brain unable to process the written language for a few seconds. Ryan commented on one of the cocktails, but Shane couldn’t hear it over the roar of his own heartbeat. He made a small sound like a contemplative laugh in response, which seemed to be appropriate as Ryan smiled up at him.</p>
<p>“This has been one of my favorite days,” Ryan said.</p>
<p>Shane could have melted and was amazed that he was still sitting upright. He tried to laugh off the sensation. “And you didn’t even get your food yet.”</p>
<p>“It’ll have to be so bad I end up in the hospital for it to ruin this.”</p>
<p>Ryan was still smiling up at him and Shane swallowed hard, not sure what he was supposed to do. After a few quiet seconds Shane asked, “What?”</p>
<p>Ryan shrugged. “Just thinking about how good I am at picking a co-host. Provided I get a second chance, I mean. No offense to Brent, but… second time ‘round I am <em>really</em> good at picking a co-host.”</p>
<p>Shane smiled and felt his face grow hot, sure that his cheeks were staring to turn humiliatingly pink at the attention. “Well, I certainly can’t complain.”</p>
<p>“You’re a fan-favorite. You heard them, a whole ballroom full of people. They all love you.”</p>
<p>Shane shrugged. “Well, it w-”</p>
<p>“-I love you too.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down at Ryan, words like a bubble in Shane’s throat and his heart stammered a beat. Ryan had half his body pressed against him, they were on a convention high, it was one in the morning, they were sitting on a bed together, and Ryan had, for the first time, told him that he loved him. It took Shane a few seconds to collect himself enough so he was physically be able to speak:</p>
<p>“And I love you.”</p>
<p>Shane’s eyes drifted down to Ryan’s lips, wanting nothing more in that moment than to know everything Ryan was thinking.</p>
<p>“I mean, as a friend,” Ryan clarified. “You’re my best friend and I love you for it.”</p>
<p>Shane no longer wanted to know everything Ryan was thinking and stopped looking at his lips. It bruised a little, but not enough to distract him from the warmth of hearing Ryan say those words. Ryan’s love may not be romantic, but it didn’t need to be. It was something other, something more and uncluttered by the rituals and obligations of romance and attraction. In friendship, there was no expectation of “I love you;” rather, it was far more often something mutually understood and not necessarily fully acknowledged, let alone named. But Ryan wanted to name it. He wanted to say the quiet part out loud. Weather Ryan did this out of curiosity or just a general giddiness, Shane would never know but would be forever grateful that Ryan said what he did.</p>
<p>Shane then realized that he had been staring down at Ryan for the past few seconds without speaking. “Hey,” he finally managed to get out. “You’re my best friend too.”</p>
<p>Ryan looked back down at the menu and Shane wondered if Ryan had seen too much of his hand. If Ryan knew that their mutual love came from slightly different places. He wondered if Ryan minded or if knowing was what made him look away from him. He didn’t pull back, at least. Their legs and arms still touched. Shane could still feel the radiating warmth of Ryan’s body.</p>
<p>Shane looked down at the menu, looking for some way out of the conversation. The answer was printed right next to his thumb. “Twenty-five dollars for nachos?”</p>
<p>“I know it’s food delivery at one in the morning, but for twenty-five dollars those better be the best goddamn nachos I ever had. Those nachos better suck my balls for twenty-five dollars.”</p>
<p>“I’d go to a restaurant where the food eats you,” Shane said. “Although, I probably wouldn’t be having a meal there.”</p>
<p>Ryan giggled as the memory faded. Shane stayed sitting beside the stump, wishing the memory could start up again. He wanted to hear Ryan say it again, wanted to play it back over and over, watching and listening for something new, something that may have been hidden away.</p>
<p>“This is crazy.”</p>
<p>“But we’re doing it.”</p>
<p>Shane looked over at another stump where another memory played, although he was still reluctant to get up.</p>
<p>“I have so many ideas for this, but I just keep thinking about how many ways this can go wrong,” Ryan said. “I’m not cut out to be anyone’s boss. You remember when I was yours?”</p>
<p>“We obviously can’t do this on our own,” Steven said. “So we’ll figure out who to talk to about this. I mean, it’s not like we’re in completely uncharted territory. There are people out there who know what we need to do to pull this off.”</p>
<p>“What if nobody cares?” Ryan pressed on. “What if we shoot all this content and open a new channel and nobody even watches it? We may already have some audience from <em>Unsolved</em> and <em>Worth It</em>, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll stay for our projects on a new channel. What if we just do this and discover the worst way possible to find out that we’re old hat.”</p>
<p>Shane got up and walked over to that tree stump, looking down at his memory of sitting with Ryan and Steven in Ryan’s kitchen. Shane had been quiet for a while, munching on the large tub of cheese balls that sat between them. He knew Ryan’s spiraling when he heard it and was going to say something, but his thoughts fizzled out when Ryan looked up at him. Ryan’s eyes were large and sad, pleading for encouragement, for a lifeline. Steven had been nothing but supportive these past few minutes, but when push came to shove, Ryan still turned to Shane. They weren’t even in a haunted house and Ryan still looked to Shane when things started to become too much for him.</p>
<p>“I, erm…” Shane started, clearing his throat before he continued. “I don’t think people are bored of us yet, especially since this will allow us to try something new. Some stuff people will like, some they won’t. Hell, there will be stuff that <em>we </em>like and stuff we won’t. People will watch <em>something</em>; we’re decent at finding out what our audience wants. After we’re established, maybe we’ll want to keep making content or maybe we’ll want to pass the torch to someone else and try some new project. We’ll have the option to do that with our own company. Maybe this is all leading us to some even bigger project. Maybe we’ll open a line of haunted bed and breakfasts. You’ll work on haunted, I’ll work on bed, and Steven will work on breakfast. We’re a package deal.”</p>
<p>The worried furrow of Ryan’s brow softened and faded until Ryan was smiling. As Shane looked down into the memory playing in the tree stump, he wondered how many times Ryan’s eyes had stopped him in his tracks like that. If these memories were anything to go by, it happened a lot. More likely, however, it was what made the moment worth remembering. That certainly was a pleasant way to remember the past five years: lost in his eyes.</p>
<p>Shane kept walking and found himself watching his memories of the 2019 Streamys. Both <em>BUN</em> and <em>Worth It</em> were nominated, but they weren’t there expecting any award. They were there to network. It was easier talking to creators than it was talking to CEOs, but still exhausting. After a while, they ended up standing at one of the bar tables scattered around the perimeter of the hall. Ryan’s mother was there, invited as Ryan’s plus-one. Shane thought it was sweet. He liked Linda and her odd sense of humor that made him shout laugher while Ryan quietly shook his head or rolled his eyes, still smiling. Always smiling. Ryan seemed to be more tolerable of his mother’s humor that night. Shane wasn’t sure if it was because he was in a good mood or if he was just overflowing with an anxious giddiness as he spread the news of <em>Watcher</em>, their secret project. Either way, there as something about the way Ryan looked between Shane and Linda. Something that made Shane feel like he was being reintroduced to the family.</p>
<p>The <em>Watcher</em> tree stumps were plentiful and new, many small trees carved open and showing off quick little instances filming Watcher Weekly and the two of them staying in the office late, combing through the discord and promising to “head out soon,” although they knew they still had at least another hour of sitting side by side, just scrolling. Shane paused at one particular small tree, a very recent memory. They were on a boat, skimming over cresting waves and looking for whales. Ryan was squinting into the sun and spray kicked up by the boat, looking a little disappointed until suddenly his face brightened and he was clambering over Shane to lean against the rail and get a better look. Dark shapes rose in the distance, spouting water and arcing, curving until finally a massive tail rose from the ocean. Shane stood behind him. He tried to watch the whales, but his eyes kept wandering to Ryan’s neck and shoulder, exposed in the breeze. The thought of leaning forward and kissing warm, golden brown skin had never been so tempting. No, not tempting. Natural. It felt like it was what he should have been doing. He should have been kissing the back of Ryan’s neck and wrapping his arms around him. They should have been warming each other from the harsh, cold sting of the ocean air. Shane should have been watching the dark tails crest the water through half-lidded eyes, face partially buried against Ryan’s hair. This was simply what people in their situation did. How they were supposed to be.</p>
<p>But Shane remained still. Staring down at Ryan’s neck as everyone else watched the whales, gasping at cooing at the sight. Ryan turned back at him and smiled and Shane had never been so tempted to tell him, so tempted to close the distance between them. They didn’t need to kiss, he just wanted to hold him. Instead, Shane smiled back, small and lopsided.</p>
<p>“This is amazing,” Ryan said.</p>
<p>Shane could only nod, swallowing hard before he gripped the rail along the deck for support. To keep from falling to Ryan in dizzying affection. He stared at the ocean. Whales disappeared beneath the waves and he wondered how long he could pretend that this was alright. That everything was normal.</p>
<p>Watching the memory, Shane lightly touched his lips, remembering the need for a warm pressure against him. The need for the solid curve of a muscular body pulled close. He tried to shake himself of the desire; of these sorts of moments, where he was so swept-up in a Ryan that he knew never existed. Shane knew then that, if he had closed the distance, he would have learned very quickly that Ryan wasn’t someone who would fit easily into his arms. Ryan would have pulled away. He would have laughed at him; not out of cruelty but rather out of surprise, deciding for both of them that an honest moment was nothing more than a bit. Or worse, he would pretend it never happened; humiliated and unable to look Shane in the eye again.</p>
<p>None of that would have been guaranteed. In that moment, standing among tree stumps and memories, Shane allowed himself to imagine a scenario where Ryan leaned back against his chest. Where they could feel each other’s racing heartbeats and the heat of each other’s blush. They would stand in silence as they watched the sea, knowing they would need to talk about this and the several cameras pointing at them, knowing that this was something they didn’t need to worry about in that moment.</p>
<p>Obi rubbed against Shane’s leg and the moment evaporated. Shane shook his head. Really, any number of memories Shane had walked past could have been pulled into that fantasy.</p>
<p>It would have been nice.</p>
<p>But it wouldn’t have been Ryan.</p>
<p>It was better to remember Ryan for who he was. No point in Shane breaking his own heart.</p>
<p>Shane looked around the clearing. He had walked past every stump, following his own story all the way across the clearing. At the forest’s edge there was a tree with an ax resting beside it. Several deep notches were carved into the tree trunk, but not enough to make it fall. As he approached it, Shane could hear a muffled conversation and the quiet drone of music. He knelt down and listened, but it was still too soft to decipher. However, there was no question that it was Ryan’s voice.</p>
<p>Shane picked up the ax and swung hard into the tree. The swing did little more than knock off a large splinter of bark. He swung again. Another splinter. Again. Another. As he kept swinging he began to realize that he would not be able to cut the tree down or even make the initial gash all that deeper. But still he tried until the sound from inside the tree became loud enough for him to hear clearly.</p>
<p>“Go back to sleep, Shane.”</p>
<p>“Why are we still in the car?”</p>
<p>“Shut up.”</p>
<p>Shane knelt down beside the gash in the tree, ear turned to it. The conversation coming from deep inside the trunk sounded like it was just him and Ryan. The radio was on in the memory and Shane could hear the drone of an engine.</p>
<p>“Are you lost?” Shane heard himself ask.</p>
<p>“I’m getting there, alright?”</p>
<p>“Where are we? I thought you said you knew how to get back to the expressway.”</p>
<p>“I’m getting there!”</p>
<p>The radio played. <em>You walk into the room, pencil in your hand. You see somebody naked and you say, “Who’s that man?”</em></p>
<p>Shane heard himself speak up. “Maybe I should drive.”</p>
<p>“Absolutely not. I’m a better driver than you, anyways.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but aren’t you tired? It’s almost midnight.”</p>
<p>“I’ll get us to the hotel, okay?”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you use the GPS?”</p>
<p>“It’s not working, Shane!”</p>
<p>They fell quiet again. As Shane sat beside the tree, listening, he thought it was strange. They had had a few conversations similar to this, but there as something incredibly unfamiliar about this one. Although each volley back and forth might be anticipated, it was also entirely new.</p>
<p>
  <em>And somebody points to you and says, “It’s his. And you say “What’s mine?” And somebody else says, “Well, what is?”</em>
</p>
<p>Shane heard himself break the silence again. “Weird that there’s no lights on this road. Do you think there is a power outa-”</p>
<p>“-Yeah! No lights! I noticed!”</p>
<p>“…Or I could go fuck myself.”</p>
<p>“I’ll get us to the motel. I know it’s late. I am very aware that it’s late.”</p>
<p>“Well, next gas station you see, pull over. I’ll see if they have a ma-”</p>
<p>“Shane, we’re not driving into some backwoods gas station and announcing to the mountain men of <em>Deliverance</em> that we’re lost. Do you wanna end up killed? Or, like, something way way worse?”</p>
<p>“What if it’s not a backwoods gas station? What if it’s normal?”</p>
<p>“I still don’t like going into those places at night when I’m not entirely sure where I am. It’s… it just can be really dangerous, okay. If we see one, you go in.”</p>
<p>“Why am I going in if you think it’s so dangerous?”</p>
<p>“Because it’s not dangerous for you!”</p>
<p>“What do you even mean by that?!”</p>
<p>“I mean you’re white!”</p>
<p>Shane was quiet for a while before, “Oh.”</p>
<p>
  <em>But nobody has any respect. Anyway, they already expect you to all give a check to tax-deductible charity organizations.</em>
</p>
<p>“Ryan, I didn’t mean… Do you want to talk about it?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“Okay, but if you- Um! Ryan? This is probably a bad time, but I think you’re going the wrong way.”</p>
<p>“I know you think I’m going the wrong way.”</p>
<p>“No, I mean, you’re going the wrong way down this one-way road. I just glanced behind us and saw a sign clear as day.”</p>
<p>“What?! When the fuck did this turn into a one-way road?”</p>
<p>“Well, get off as soon as you can.”</p>
<p>“I’ve been on this road for five minutes, Shane. I haven’t seen a single intersection. And this is too narrow to do a U-turn. No, there has to be some road I can turn onto coming up. A driveway, anything. This won’t just go on forever.”</p>
<p>“You could go for a Y-turn, but I don’t like how close we are to that river.”</p>
<p>“Is that’s what’s over there?”</p>
<p>“What the hell does that mean? Of course it’s a… can you not fucking see?”</p>
<p>“Look, it’s not that b-”</p>
<p>“Ryan!”</p>
<p>There were sounds Shane expected that never came. The screaming of tires against pavement. Heavy palms leaning into horns. Shouting. But it wasn’t anything like that. There was a groan as the car tore open a barrier. The raking crunch of bushes and small trees folding under wheels. Frantic, strangled breaths and an unsettling sort of quiet, like all the sound got sucked out of the car while the rhythm under the tires grew faster and faster.</p>
<p>Then nothing at all.  </p>
<p>The car didn’t crash all at once, but rather inch by inch, slowed by the incomprehensible frenzy of a panicked mind. They were swallowed and the world was roaring and muted all at once. The last thing Shane could hear was the radio.</p>
<p>
  <em>‘Cause something is happening and you don’t know what it is. <br/></em>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. You're Very Well-Read, It's Well Known</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You've been with the professors</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And they've all liked your looks</em>
  <br/>
  <em>[...]</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You've been through all of</em>
  <br/>
  <em>F. Scott Fitzgerald's books</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You're very well-read</em>
  <br/>
  <em>It's well-known</em>
</p><hr/><p>Shane knelt beside the tree. His heart was racing and he wasn’t entirely sure why. What troubled him was that he couldn’t remember that memory. There was little there to ground it in any particular time or place. Ryan often drove. He was a good driver too, so there were parts that just didn’t make any sense. Perhaps it wasn’t a memory at all.</p><p>He didn’t like it.</p><p>He didn’t like having to guess what he would have seen in the memory.</p><p>He didn’t like how he couldn’t remember how he got to the hotel.</p><p>In that moment, Shane heard a familiar whistling that pulled him out of his thoughts. He turned towards the sound and saw a small, green parrot sitting on a branch in the forest. His parrot. The one he had known his entire childhood and would have sworn had buried before he left Shaumburg. Paco. But there he was, sitting there and looking at Shane like not a day had passed since they had last seen each other. Shane smiled and whistled back, the same simple notes he used to sing to his bird all the time. However, the bird didn’t return the call and instead turned and flew off his branch. A second later, Shane realized why as he once more saw Obi go bounding into the forest.  </p><p>Again, Shane ran between the trees and away from familiarity, following his animals. The thoughts and emotions tied to the memories he saw, Shane set aside. The strange car accident Shane had heard he also set aside, although it still worried him. He was sure he would have time to remember, and mourn, and piece together at some point. After all, they couldn’t run through the forest forever.</p><p>They were so far away from the path that Shane didn’t even try to map a way back. There was no retracing his steps. Besides, with how unusual that path was, perhaps that wasn’t how things worked here. Even the forest seemed to act like the impossible hallways and spaces inside the hotel. Of course they would need to find their way back eventually; hopefully when Obi had worn himself out and allowed Shane to carry him.</p><p>After all, he promised Ryan that he would come back.</p><p>Shane’s arms and face were thoroughly scratched-up by branches and trying to pick up Obi. That was how he stumbled out of the forest. Obi bounded out of the trees and across concrete for a few paces before he too collapsed, sprawled out and catching his breath. Paco, however, didn’t even slow down and flew skywards. There, in the middle of the forest, was a building. It was imposing, with rust-colored stone, gaping archways, and topped with copper filigrees and owl-shaped gargoyles, all turned pale green with time. Although Shane knew it well, it took him a moment to recognize what he was looking at. The empty city streets surrounding the building were just barely enough to make him recognize the Harold Washington Library, a structure he had never before separated from the Chicago skyline. When he wasn’t in an editing lab, this library was where he spent most of his academic career when he was going to Columbia College Chicago.</p><p>He hadn’t thought of his time in college for a while, but perhaps, he reasoned, it made sense for him to be at the library. Ever since he arrived in the hotel, Shane had been overwhelmed by questions. He wondered about himself and the people he encountered, but mostly he wondered about Ryan. There was something about Ryan’s state that made Shane positive that he wasn’t entirely gone; that, somehow, he could still get through to him. He didn’t want to say that he had given up hope that Ryan would ever come back to him entirely, but he was at a point where he was willing to adjust expectations. He needed to know what reality was here, what “reasonable” was here. He needed answers.</p><p>He needed a library.</p><p>Shane picked up Obi, the cat too tired to try to squirm away, and pulled open the golden double-doors. Inside was vast and still. Shane always thought that the lobby was more catered to large-scale receptions and fundraisers as opposed to checking out books. There had been a fair number of times when he had just wanted to go to the holds desk and had to weave his way through a crowd of mingling bourgeoisie, eating hors d'oeuvres before a business presentation in the auditorium or a wedding reception on the ninth floor. But now it was empty. The room echoed slightly as Shane cleared his throat and his boots squeaked against the marble.</p><p>With nobody to talk to, Shane went to the floor directory and scanned over it. Perhaps disappointingly, the directory wasn’t too much unlike many other libraries. There was a children’s section and a business section and a sprawling literature section. There was no floor listing for “answers (definite) to questions (vague)” or anything similar. So instead he decided to head up towards history. Of the countless questions he had about Ryan, perhaps the most pressing was, “has <em>anyone</em> ever come back?” That person, Shane reasoned as he made his way up the long, turning staircase, must have had something written on them.</p><p>As Shane walked from one floor to the next he began to think that perhaps he was alone in the library. Nobody walked between the rows or sat at any of the dozens of small desks that were pressed close to the stairs and along the walls. And yet, Shane didn’t feel like he was alone. It wasn’t a foreboding feeling, the kind Ryan used to talk about when he did a solo investigation for <em>Unsolved</em>. Instead, Shane felt simply unbothered. As if the universe had given him time to think while everyone who was supposed to be in the library hid themselves behind shelves and in back rooms, working like mice.</p><p>However, the feeling of solitude didn’t last.</p><p>As Shane approached History’s floor he heard people walking. As he stepped closer he heard people talking, words muffled but tone absolute. Indistinct shouting. Sobbing. Laughing. Not wanting to intrude, Shane peered through the railing bars of the history floor’s landing. Oddly, he couldn’t see anyone right away. Instead, he saw shadows between books. The hem of a skirt or jacket disappearing into the stacks. There were conversations somewhere among the tall bookshelves, hushed and in languages Shane could barely identify, let alone understand. He wondered if he should look somewhere else; if he was interrupting something. He was still hesitating on the steps when he saw someone not even three feet away staring down at him, watching. Shane startled and clutched Obi to him so close that the cat shouted in protest. He quickly apologized to Obi and looked back up at the man above him.</p><p>The man was barefoot and wore a kimono, bunched up and tied so it hang about knee-level. His hair was slightly messy and dangled out in long strands from under a conical hat. He smiled and said something, Shane unable to understand the language. The man motioned him to the top of the flight of stairs and Shane followed.</p><p>Shane looked around and turned to the man. “I’m looking f-”</p><p>The man put a finger to his lips and walked towards the bookshelves. He stopped before he could get too far away and motioned Shane to follow him.</p><p>As Shane was led away from the steps he was immediately struck by how dark the library became as soon as he was lost among the books. And “lost” was how he felt. He didn’t walk for long before books were all he could see, the maze of the shelves obscuring the walls of the room. And the murmuring from the shadowy figures continued, Shane unsettled by how well they seemed to know their way through the books. There was a gunshot and Shane ducked down, shielding Obi. The man who was guiding him stopped and turned to see Shane on his knees. He too knelt down and put a hand on Shane’s shoulder before whispering something. He smiled, his expression soothing, but there was something in the way his eyes darted along the rows that told Shane that they needed to keep moving. Hesitant, the two of them got to their feet and kept moving.</p><p>As they walked, Shane reached out and let his fingertips drag along the old spines. He remembered coming here in college and thinking that, if he wandered deep enough into the stacks, he could die and nobody would find him. He thought of that again as he followed the man and watched silent shadows move behind the books. He didn’t want to wonder if he was being followed.</p><p>After walking for several long, silent minutes, Shane and his guide arrived at a tall, glass door etched with the word “ARCHIVE”. The guide put a finger to his lips and motioned Shane to stay back as he approached the door. With a sound so quiet that could have been mistaken for mice chewing in the walls, the man tapped against the glass. A moment later, another man appeared on the other side of the glass. He too wore a kimono, but at his waist was tied two swords. His hair was tied up and back and his face was marked with a deep scar that cut through his brow and down the side of his face. His expression was stern until he looked up at the man who had been guiding Shane. All at once, his appearance softened and he unlocked the door. He and the guide talked briefly and in hushed tones, at one point the guide removing his large, conical hat and holding it to the side to obscure their faces. When the hat was moved aside, both of them were slightly flushed and Shane looked away, not sure if he should have been seeing what he did. But before Shane could do anything more, the man with the swords took Shane by the wrist and pulled him to the glass door. He was motioned through and the next thing Shane knew, he was standing on the other side of the glass and looking back at the two other men. The guide took the man with the swords by the hands and pulled, trying to lead him away from the doors, but the man with the swords didn’t move. Instead, the guide only smiled sadly and stood by his partner’s side, back resting against the glass as they talked again.</p><p>Shane turned away from the door and looked around the room he now found himself in. It was darker and colder than the rest of the library, cold enough to make Shane hold Obi even closer. Unlike the history room, none of the books here were on shelves. Instead, they stood in wavy towers and in large walls that must have been over eight feet tall. In the entire room, there was only a single light, right in the middle of it. If he stood completely still, Shane could hear the soft sound of a pen scratching against paper.</p><p>There was someone here.</p><p>Shane walked deeper into the archive, maneuvering around books and careful not to step on anything. The walls of books, he noticed, all seemed to form long arches surrounding some central point. It wasn’t long before he walked around the final barrier and saw what the entire archive had been surrounding.</p><p>It was a book. A single book with pages as large as king-sized beds. It lay open to a page near the beginning, the bulk of the book stacked in a bound pile that was a few feet taller than Shane. Tilting his head, Shane looked under the book and saw the spine, which read, simply: <em>History</em>.</p><p>Shane heard scratching again, this time from above him, and called out. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“One moment.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t mean to interrupt. I’m just looking for-”</p><p>“-One moment, please.”</p><p>Shane fell quiet and heard the scratching grow faster. Curious, Shane wandered along the side of the massive book, only to run into several dozen smaller books in the way. It took a few seconds for Shane to register that these weren’t books so much as they were steps, many many small steps that traveled up along the sides of the book. Trying to be polite, Shane knelt down and unlaced his boots. As he did, Obi jumped off Shane’s shoulder and immediately began sniffing around the stacks.</p><p>Boots off, Shane began to climb the book steps, which were far narrower and not as tall as real steps, so it took him a few piles before he could finally see over the top of the book.</p><p>The page was crammed with text printed in a size usually reserved for subscripts. Although Shane could read it, he couldn’t imagine reading for very long without getting a headache. It made sense, then, that the open pages were littered with magnifying glasses and small notebooks. In the middle of all of this was a small, instantly-recognizable blue puppet.</p><p>“Professor?”</p><p>“I’ll be right with you, Shane. Let me just finish this thought.”</p><p>The Professor sat in the middle of the page with a magnifying glass and a notebook. The pencil he held was large in his hand, its pink eraser dancing and jolting through the air. As he wrote, the Professor murmured to himself, his head bobbing slightly as he mumbled his way through the sentence. He then put his pencil down and held up the notebook, reading over what he just wrote before he nodded and set everything down.</p><p>“So,” the Professor said, getting up and turning towards Shane. “What can I do for my favorite TA? Keep in mind, I am writing up next semester’s syllabus right now, so I am a little busy.”</p><p>Shane gripped hard to the edge of the book to keep himself from taking a step backwards when he saw the Professor walk on his own. Instead he cleared his throat and tried to remind himself that this wasn’t the strangest thing he had seen recently. “I… um…”</p><p>“You haven’t run into a magical genie have you? Because that might be the one thing I’m not really qualified to advise you on.”</p><p>“No, it’s not like that,” Shane said. “It’s um… it’s about Ryan.”</p><p>“Yeah yes, your favorite pupil. I figured you would come to talk to me about him eventually.”</p><p>“You did? So you know what’s wrong with him?”</p><p>“What’s ‘wrong’ with him?” the Professor tossed back his head and belted out a laugh. “My dear boy, I know there is a lot you have left to learn in your research, but I can assure you right now that there isn’t anything ‘wrong’ with Ryan.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>The Professor sighed and shook his head, approaching Shane at the edge of the book. “I know that we academic types always want to search for some logical explanation for any phenomena, but, trust me, you don’t feel the way you do because there is anything ‘wrong’ with Ryan.”</p><p>“No! I mean… he’s… I…” Shane wanted to correct him, but in the Professor saying what he did it felt like a weight had begun to lift. In all these years, Shane never had anyone he could talk to candidly about this. Hell, he could remember a night when his nerves were so frayed that he nearly blurted out his whole life story to the woman ringing up his groceries. “Am I that obvious?”</p><p>The professor shrugged. “You may not be. But, the thing is, when you read enough of this,” he scuffed his foot against the page, “you begin to see patterns. ‘Oh, that’s why she doesn’t look away.’ ‘Oh, that’s why they write every day.’ ‘Oh, that’s why he wants to make him smile.’ And you do want to make him smile, Shane. Don’t you? I’ve seen it, I’ve read it. Whenever he’s afraid… god you want to make him smile.”</p><p>“And what does he want?” Shane asked. “Have you read that?”</p><p>“I can only guess. But hey, he always ends up smiling, doesn’t he?”</p><p>“Well, not as much right now,” Shane said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”</p><p>“Oh yes, you haven’t been around <em>here </em>much, have you? I heard that some people have a harder time than others adjusting.”</p><p>“‘Adjusting’? He’s barely sentient.”</p><p>The Professor put up his hands, motioning Shane to calm down. “Now, now. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Shane, this place isn’t like the world you’re used to. Very ‘down is up,’ you know. I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He’ll be fine.”</p><p>“‘He’ll be fine’?! He’s a goddamn corpse!” Shane took a deep breath, trying not to shout at one of the very few beings who actually tried to be helpful. “But I don’t think he is. Not really. I mean, I know he’s still in there. Somewhere.”</p><p>“He is in there, Shane,” the Professor said. “And he’s lucky to have someone like you, you know that?”</p><p>Shane sighed and rested his arms on the page, wondering why he ever thought he would find an easy answer. “What am I supposed to do?”</p><p>“Have you let him know you’re there for him?”</p><p>Shane nodded.</p><p>“And have you been there for him?”</p><p>Another nod.</p><p>The Professor patted Shane’s hand. “Then you wait. You can talk to him, make him comfortable, but the decision for him to come back is up to him, not you. It hurts to hear, but sometimes the only thing you can do is stay true to your word and wait.”</p><p>Shane nodded, still feeling useless but, at least, slightly less frustrated. “I suppose there isn’t much for me to do but go back and wait for him to wake up.”</p><p>“If that’s what you want to wait for.”</p><p>“He’s who I want to wait for.”</p><p>“Then go ahead.” The Professor stretched and looked up at the single light that illuminated the room. “Take your time. As much time as you need. Strange thing about this place… it seems to exist in excess here.”</p><p>“I don’t suppose you know how I can help wake him up again.”</p><p>“I’m not the Wizard of Oz, Shane.”</p><p>“That guy ended up being a fraud anyways.” Shane sighed and looked down at the narrow book staircase he stood on. “Thank you for hearing me out.”</p><p>“Well, I best get back to my research and you your classes. You need to be all ready for next season.”</p><p>Shane hummed in acknowledgement but wasn’t able to respond before he saw a small shadow move on the very edge of his peripheral. The next moment was a blur of orange and blue as Obi leapt from one of the book towers and tackled the Professor halfway across the page. Shane reached for the two to pull them apart, but they were both too far away.</p><p>“Obi, put him down! He’s not your feather toy, he’s a revered academic!”</p><p>Shane was about to crawl on top of the book when Obi suddenly released the Professor, tossing him up onto one of the wall-like stacks that surrounded <em>History</em>.</p><p>“Professor, are you-”</p><p>“Get him out of here!”</p><p>Shane grabbed Obi, dragging the squirming cat into his arms. “He didn’t mean to do it.”</p><p>“I don’t ever want that <em>animal </em>in my library again!”</p><p>The Professor said the word with such reproach that Shane nearly objected to the term.  Shane jumped down off the book stairs, stepped into his boots, and approached the massive stack that the Professor was on top of. “He’s usually very gentle.”</p><p>“He’s an apex predator. And I think our conversation is done, Shane; you can go too. It’s not like I have anything that could help wake up Ry-AAH!”</p><p>Obi had wrestled out of Shane’s arms and started to climb up book spines towards the Professor. Shane was able to pick him up before he got very far again, but the Professor only seemed to get even more anxious.</p><p>“Wait,” Shane said. “<em>Is </em>there something that could help him wake up?”</p><p>“Shane, you… you don’t need- control your animal, Mr. Madej!”</p><p>“Just tell me!”</p><p>“Okay, fine!”</p><p>Shane had Obi squished against him, his arm getting scratched up in the few frantic seconds before the cat started to calm down. Shane, however, was anything but calm. “Wait, then what was all that about how the ‘only thing I can do is wait’?”</p><p>The Professor dug around in his satchel. “No, you’ll still need to wait, Shane. This can speed things up but… it could also make things more complicated for you.”</p><p>“You can always just tell me what’s going on.”</p><p>“I can’t, Shane. I don’t know. The story is still being written.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>“Oh, just take this.” The Professor held out his hand and started dropping down jellybeans. “Start with one, see how that works for him. But you need to be careful with these; remember that.”</p><p>Shane caught them as they fell, the bright candies collecting in his palm as Obi crawled onto his shoulder. As soon as the Professor stopped dropping them, Shane pocketed the small handful and held Obi close to him.</p><p>The professor let out an annoyed huff. “Lived a thousand lifetimes and that was the first time I got mugged. And by my own TA at that. Where was that protection I’ve been paying for? Bokken! Bokken, where are you?!”</p><p>Shane heard the glass door open and instantly remembered the man with two swords. He turned and ran through the stacks of books, the Professor’s shouts calling after him. Thankfully, as Shane made his way through the winding stacks, he saw the red glow of an exit sign. Books spilled across the floor as he stumbled in his untied boots, positive he heard someone right behind him, running after him. He threw himself against the door and stumbled out of the archive.</p><p>To Shane’s surprise, the door opened into a familiar hallway. He was back in the hotel, the archive’s exit door so unassuming that it looked just like any other guest room door. Obi had calmed down, clearly past his little burst of excitement.</p><p>“You’re going to get me in trouble,” Shane scolded softly as he walked down the hall towards his room. “You can’t just go chasing things all the time.” He remembered the jelly beans in his pocket. “Not that I haven’t done plenty of chasing of my own.”</p><p>As he made his way to the room Shane wondered if the professor was right and that there was little for him to do now but wait. In the back of his mind he was faintly aware that he was going through a lot of grief for a man who he recently was so sure would pull away and laugh at him if Shane ever attempted intimacy. Shane rejected that awareness and tried to think on something else – how content he is with Ryan’s friendship. They never talked about it in explicit terms, but Ryan always struck Shane as someone who views friendship and romantic affection as two entirely separate entities. Of the two, Shane knew which would make him happier, and he wasn’t going to give that up for the sake of something as impermanent as physical intimacy.</p><p>He opened the door to his room.</p><p>
  <em>But both would be nice.</em>
</p><p>The cell that was Shane’s room was filled with blankets, sheets, and pillows, piled so high that Shane couldn’t even tell where the small bed began. The walls and ceiling were also covered with sheets, forming red and purple walls and intricate, draping designs. Ryan lay in the middle of it on a particularly luxurious lump in the middle of the room, still wrapped in his sheet. There were times before when it looked like he was only sleeping, but now he looked as if he had lain down and was so comfortable that he could do nothing but drift off to sleep.</p><p>Shane set Obi down on a pillow and closed the door behind them. He toed off his boots and socks, shed his coat, and climbed onto the pile, sitting down beside Ryan.</p><p>“I, um,” Shane said, stopping to clear his throat. “I met up with the Professor. He gave me something that might help you.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small, purple jellybean. “He said it would help you wake up. I don’t… I don’t know if it would work. There’s still a lot I don’t know. But I need to try. You’ll wake up when you’re good and ready, but I need to try something.”</p><p>Shane looked around and picked up several pillows, piling them under Ryan until he was sitting up. He reached out and carefully opened Ryan’s mouth, placing the jellybean between his teeth. To Shane’s relief, Ryan slowly bit down and began to chew on his own. Still, Shane massaged along Ryan’s jawline, guiding him until he watched him swallow it down.</p><p>“I suppose we wait now,” Shane said, rearranging pillows as he lay down beside Ryan. “I could stand to sleep again.”</p><p>As he sank into the blankets and pillows his shirt rode up, exposing and pressing skin into the soft, cool sheets. Shane hesitated before sitting up and pulling off his shirt, tossing it aside. He considered taking off his pants too, but settled on unbuckling and unbuttoning them, sighing as the fabric loosened around his body. He lay back down, finally feeling like he was able to relax as the sheets cradled him.</p><p>“When I wake up,” Shane said, taking off his glasses and setting them out of the way, “maybe we’ll be able to talk.”</p><p>He looked back over at Ryan, who still lay motionless.</p><p>“But I can wait. However long you need, Ryan. I will wait for you.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. But Something is Happening Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>But something is happening here</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And you don't know what it is</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p><hr/><p>Shane drifted back into consciousness to the sound of running water. A tap. He opened his eyes, but only barely. Everything felt heavy, like he was still partially asleep and his dreams kept weighing him down. A radio could be heard, muffled slightly by distance, playing slow, longing song.</p><p>
  <em>Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente,<br/>y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.</em>
</p><p>Even focusing his eyes felt like a trial that was more effort than it was worth – at least until he realized what he was looking at.</p><p>Ryan stood above Shane, the sheet he had been wearing draped around him like a robe. He looked sleep-deprived, moreso than usual, but still he smiled down at Shane. It was a small, somewhat sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. Shane tried to smile back, but couldn’t. Instead, all he felt was a warmth sweep over his face and settle in his cheeks, a pink blush that he knew Ryan must be able to see. Ryan ran his fingers through Shane’s hair and Shane’s eyes fluttered closed. Shane wondered if he was being rewarded for giving Ryan the apparently life-giving jellybean. He wondered if Ryan knew just how much of a reward this was.</p><p>He felt water against his hair and registered something hard and cold digging into the back of his neck. Again, hands carded through Shane’s hair and the water spread gently around him, the weight a gentle pressure on his scalp. Ryan must have dragged him over to the sink and was, unless Shane was very mistaken about what was happening, washing Shane’s hair. Hands kept caressing and pulling water through strands of hair, a gentle massage, and when Ryan cradled the back of Shane’s head, lifting it so he could dampen the hairs near the nape of his neck, Shane felt like he could have sobbed. Water washed over Shane’s ears and Ryan spoke, muffled under it. It took a couple seconds for the rush of the tap to quiet enough for Shane to hear.</p><p>“You know, I’ve been worried about you.”</p><p>Unable to move or speak, Shane could only lie in Ryan’s hands, thinking, <strong><em>You’ve</em></strong><em> been worried about <strong>me</strong>?</em></p><p>“But things are looking better now. That’s what-”</p><p>Ryan was cut off by the tap and water muffling Shane’s ears. Shane tried to squirm away from it so he could hear, but he couldn’t move.</p><p>“-then we’ll be able to go home. Get back to how things are meant to be.”</p><p>The music played on.</p><p>
  <em>Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:<br/></em>
  <em>dejame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.</em>
</p><p>Ryan’s hand left Shane for a moment, only to return with a thick shampoo that he rubbed into Shane’s hair and scalp. Before this, Shane had never even thought about the intimacy of someone washing his hair. When someone did wash his hair it was always so impersonal, Shane talking to his barber about his work and listening to the old man talk about his grand kids. It was quick, a detachable faucet pressed against his head and heavy hands moving him around. This was different. In the soft, careful movements of Ryan’s hands, Shane was reminded of old paintings of baptisms – of water cupped in the palm and brought to the head. Ryan’s warm hands brushed over Shane’s hairline, drawing water over his brow. Were it not for the profound weakness that settled over Shane’s limbs, he would have reached up and put his arms around Ryan.</p><p>“Your parents are coming in the morning. And I just got a text from Scott saying he’ll be over sometime late tonight.”</p><p>
  <em>Here?</em>
</p><p>“But it’s just me for the time being. Me: making sure you’re presentable when they come in.”</p><p>Ryan dragged his fingers through Shane’s hair. The distinctive sound of shampoo bubbles had stopped and there was just water again, pouring down and pulled through his hair. The tap turned off and Shane basked in the warmth of Ryan’s hands, still cradling his head. For a few seconds there was nothing but the sound of droplets hitting the bottom of the sink.</p><p>“Shane?” Ryan asked. “I know I’ve probably asked for a lot over the years. I know that, in your perspective, I’ve dragged you to a lot of empty rooms where you think we’re talking to nothing. I know. And here I am, asking even more from you. I know I should just… let you be in capable hands, but I can’t. Not yet.”</p><p>
  <em>Ryan?</em>
</p><p>“Shane… come back to me. I miss you.”</p><p>
  <em>I’m right here.</em>
</p><p>“You need to wake up.”</p><p>
  <em>I am awake. Ryan?</em>
</p><p>Ryan breathed deep, so deep that Shane could feel it in his hands. When Ryan spoke again his voice was quiet and tight. “I need you.”</p><p>Shane struggled to open his eyes, but there was some sort of disconnect, some distance, between Shane’s body and what he commanded of it. But then he felt Ryan lean down and press his lips against his cheek. Stubble scratched against stubble and every part of Shane that fought for control let go as he sank into Ryan’s shaking hands. The kiss didn’t last long and Ryan pulled back, his breaths heavy and quavering slightly.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “That was… I’m sorry.”</p><p>
  <em>Don’t be.</em>
</p><p>“That was creepy. I shouldn’t have done that.”</p><p>
  <em>No. I wanted-</em>
</p><p>“-Just forget about it, okay?”</p><p>
  <em>Wait…</em>
</p><p>Sensation grew fuzzy, as if Ryan’s touch softened to an undefined pressure and then nothing. Even the darkness behind closed eyes grew deeper as Shane felt like he was falling away from Ryan. The radio, however, played on.</p><p>
  <em>Me gustas cuando callas porque estas como ausente.<br/>Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.<br/>Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.<br/>Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>“Poema 15 (me gustas cuando callas)” written by Pablo Neruda and set to music by Mercedes Sosa.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. And Then He Clicks His High Heels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you<br/>
And then he kneels</em><br/>
<em>He crosses himself</em><br/>
<em>And then he clicks his high heels</em><br/>
<em>[...]</em><br/>
<em>And he says, "Here is your throat back</em><br/>
<em>Thanks for the loan"</em>
</p><hr/>
<p>As soon as Shane woke up he immediately sat up; something easier said than done. His head throbbed in resistance at the sudden change in blood pressure, but Shane wasn’t about to let Ryan think that he wasn’t interested. He looked over at Ryan and lightly touched his arm, his excitement fading as he realized that Ryan wasn’t responsive. Ryan wasn’t any more or less of a corpse than he was before and Shane didn’t know how to react to that, aside from impulsively resisting the concept of “corpse.” He could give Ryan another jellybean and stay awake this time. However, Shane knew that he couldn’t rule out the possibility that he had simply dreamed about Ryan washing his hair.</p>
<p>Shane carded his fingers through his hair and hated how it didn’t feel any different than it usually did.</p>
<p>Either way, unless he had any evidence to the contrary, it might as well have been a dream. It wasn’t like Ryan was about to get up and kiss him again, as much as Shane would enjoy that. He touched his cheek with the very tips of his fingertips, trying to remember the sensation of Ryan’s lips against him. All it did was remind him of how much more there was to the kiss than lips alone. The heat of his body, the gentle pressure against Shane’s arm as Ryan leaned over him, that scent that was little more than soap and sweat but yet was something entirely, uniquely <em>Ryan</em>. It lasted for only a few seconds, but Shane let them echo and lingered for as long as he could.</p>
<p>Shyly, uncertain, he lightly touched his fingertips to Ryan’s cheek, resting them against soft skin and a few stray points of stubble.</p>
<p>“I miss you too, Ry.”</p>
<p>There was a knock at the door, cutting the moment far too short. Shane carefully got to his feet, staggering off the pillow and blanket pile and onto solid ground. He didn’t bother putting his shirt back on, seeing as Obi was curled up in it and sleeping quite contentedly. When he opened the door he was face-to-face with Steven, who looked Shane up and down before exclaiming softly and averting his eyes. Shane looked down and realized that his fly had come entirely undone in his sleep. Grateful that it was simply an open zipper and not something significantly worse, Shane made himself as presentable as he could.</p>
<p>“What is it, Steven?”</p>
<p>“I came to tell you t-”</p>
<p>“-you can look now.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Good.” Steven looked back up at Shane. And then down. And then quickly back up. “I came to inform you that your parents are on their way here.”</p>
<p>Shane’s eyes widened slightly. Perhaps what he had experienced not too long ago wasn’t entirely a dream.</p>
<p>“They have made a reservation at our restaurant. And, erm, there is a dress code.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down at his own bare chest. “I wasn’t planning on-”</p>
<p>“-Here.”</p>
<p>Steven held out a garment bag that Shane hadn’t noticed before and handed it to Shane. Shane took and opened it, revealing a black suit, white collared shirt, and a wine red waistcoat with delicate golden embroidery. A matching tie hung pre-tied around the collar, simply waiting for someone to pull it on and tighten it into place. It was the single most elegant piece of clothing Shane had ever held and that was enough to make him want to get rid of it as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>“Steven, I can’t possibly take this.”</p>
<p>“Please,” Steven said. “Consider it a gift. I mean, when’s the last time they saw you so dressed up?”</p>
<p>“Prom?”</p>
<p>“Exactly.” Steven smiled. “C’mon, Shane. Everyone’s parents likes to see them look nice. Now, you get dressed and then come to the restaurant. It’s right next to <em>Breakfast and a Show</em>.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down at the suit again. “I can’t promise this will fit. I have strange proportions. Long legs.”</p>
<p>“It will. Don’t worry.” Steven looked nervously down the hall and towards the lobby. “Your table will be ready in about twenty. I’m not sure when your parents will arrive but… I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and thanked Steven again for the suit before he closed the door. He rifled along the covered walls until he found a hook and hung up the garment bag, doing little more than stare at the outfit for a solid minute before he moved.</p>
<p>“Obi,” Shane called out as he took off his chinos. “Got more clothes for you to sleep on.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>It wasn’t until Shane was standing in front of the dark, reflective windows of the restaurant that he was able to see himself in the suit for the first time. Unlike most clothes people handed to him, it fit. The slacks were just the right length so the cuffs rested on top of the polished shoes he found at the bottom of the garment bag. His jacket was practically tailored to his body, accentuating the gentle curve of his spine and even making it look like he had a bit of an ass. Everything fit and draped so well that he looked like he could have been a model. Shane was reminded of his Clark Gable photoshoot, except here there were no costume departments waiting to get their things back and no sweat fighting against stage makeup as Shane stood under hot lights.</p>
<p>
  <em>Well well well, we meet again.</em>
</p>
<p>That’s what Ryan would say if he saw him like this, Shane decided. But only if he were wearing a suit too. Shane didn’t think anyone understood the costume aspect of clothing quite like Ryan. If Ryan were there he would have them strut into the restaurant like they were people who were far more important than they were, with pasts far more interesting than what they had. In every fantasy Ryan concocted they were always joined at the hip, sharing yachts and bunkers and sports cars. Even in fantasy, Ryan made them inseparable.</p>
<p>It was wrong to dress up and go out without him, wasn’t it?</p>
<p>Wrong or not, Shane couldn’t avoid the sense of discomfort of seeing himself so dressed up and alone. It felt wrong. He never looked more gorgeous in his life and it just felt <em>wrong</em>.</p>
<p>However, Shane knew he shouldn’t keep his parents waiting. He did have a lot he wanted to talk with them about.</p>
<p>Shane stepped into the restaurant and walked up to the host stand. The host was one of the faceless people who wandered the hotel – not really faceless, but a face with features Shane had a hard time focusing on. It was difficult to distinguish one from another. Whoever they were, they led Shane to his table.</p>
<p>Shane followed the host into the dining room. There weren’t many people there, but those who were at their tables didn’t seem to be dressed particularly formally. There was even a table of people Shane recognized as circus workers, some still wearing their masks. Shane looked at the floor as he passed them, hoping against hope that they didn’t see him. If they did, they thankfully didn’t say anything as the host led Shane into a somewhat-partitioned-off and quiet area of the restaurant. There was a table set for two there, an envelope lying on one of the place settings. Shane was sat down in front of it.</p>
<p>The host disappeared back to the front of the house before Shane could remember to thank them. He mentally kicked himself for that and opened the envelope.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Mr. Madej,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>We regret to inform you that, due to unforeseen circumstances, Mark, Sherry, and Scott Madej will be unable to join you for dinner this evening. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>We apologize for this inconvenience and hope you have a pleasant dining experience,</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>-Management</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>Shane sighed and stuffed the letter back into the envelope. He supposed that this made sense. His family was perhaps too much of a connection to the outside world. Sure, he wasn’t here alone per-se, but everyone else in this place seemed far too… familiar with it. Shane wondered if he would get that way too. Given, there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with going with the flow. In fact, that was pretty much how Shane preferred to live his life. But the thought of giving in and accepting this place for what it was just felt very wrong to Shane. Like, if he did that, he would never be able to leave.</p>
<p>Shane was still staring down at the envelope and trying to figure things out when the table rustled and he saw dark blue in his peripheral. Glancing up, Shane saw Steven sitting across from him. He too was dressed far too elegantly for the rest of the restaurant, the collar of his suit jacket framing his neck like it was a bottle of champagne and settling luxuriously over his chest.</p>
<p>“Steven,” Shane whispered as he set the envelope aside, “I thought you said this place had a dress code. We’re the only people here in suits and I feel ridiculous.”</p>
<p>“There’s no such thing as overdressed,” Steven said, fingers tracing the sides of his water glass. “Besides, you will fit in a little more as the night goes on. Trust me.”</p>
<p>“Did you plan this?”</p>
<p>“No. I fully expected your family to be here, just as you did. When they didn’t show… I couldn’t just let you sit here alone.”</p>
<p>Shane sighed and looked down at his own water glass. “Well, thank you.”</p>
<p>“Besides, I thought this would be a good time for us to get to know each other. I mean, we know each other, but not as well as either of us knows Ryan.”</p>
<p>“I suppose that’s true.”</p>
<p>“You’re afraid for him, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“I mean, of course I am,” Shane said. “Aren’t you?”</p>
<p>Steven nodded. “I’m not entirely sure what would happen to us if we lose him. I mean, if any one of us goes then this… Watcher, I mean… isn’t sustainable.” He paused, sipping his water. “Well… I dunno. Perhaps that’s not true. You and Ryan did nearly all the content during Covid without me.”</p>
<p>Shane scoffed. “Don’t say that. We need you. This company would be dead in the water without you. You’re the only one who knows what you’re doing.”</p>
<p>“Is that all I am? Business?”</p>
<p>Shane shook his head. “I told you, first thing I told you, <em>Homemade</em> is the most important thing Watcher has produced. Ryan and I… we can churn out a few laughs. Whatever. Tons of people do that. What you’re doing really matters, Steven.”</p>
<p>“It’s awfully nice of you to say.”</p>
<p>“I mean it.” Shane tapped his fingers against the side of his own water glass. “Not to mention that it looks <em>really </em>good. That is one gorgeous show.”</p>
<p>Steven ducked his head and looked away as he laughed, his cheeks slightly pink.</p>
<p>“Don’t you start thinking that your work doesn’t matter, Steven. Because it does.”</p>
<p>Steven looked up, smiling as he met Shane’s eyes. “Why don’t we ever talk?”</p>
<p>“I… I don’t know.”</p>
<p>And Shane didn’t know. Back at BuzzFeed, Shane mostly knew Steven because Ryan was a mutual friend. But Shane was never able to connect with him much more than that. Shane didn’t like talking about sports and Steven was perhaps the only person Shane knew who didn’t like talking about movies. Steven understood Shane’s sense of humor, but didn’t seem to share it. Of course Steven was the reliable sort of person Shane would want to be able to turn to, but they didn’t have all that much in common. Sometimes it felt like Shane barely knew the man.</p>
<p>“We should change that,” Steven said.</p>
<p>Shane smiled weakly. He tried to separate memories of Steven from memories of Ryan; but, after how much time the three of them spent together, it was difficult. But that wasn’t Steven’s fault, Shane supposed.</p>
<p>Steven cleared his throat, clearly resistant to the silence that always came with him and Shane being alone together. Shane never minded the silence. In fact, he kind of enjoyed feeling so comfortable with Steven that he didn’t feel the need to fill the air with sound. Apparently, Steven wasn’t as comfortable as Shane always assumed he was. “Well,” Steven began. “We’re both from the Midwest.”</p>
<p>“Midwest rise up!”</p>
<p>Shane and Steven both more-or-less stood, although neither straighted themselves and both kind of hunched over the table. They immediately sat back down, significantly less interested in the bit than they were in the office. It was different when Shane knew that Lauren would edit in the <em>moo</em> sound effect, he supposed.</p>
<p>Steven continued: “We can talk about Midwest things.”</p>
<p>“Cornfields.”</p>
<p>“Snow.”</p>
<p>“People divulging a reasonable amount of personal information when you first meet them and not saddling you with their entire life story.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I noticed that too.” Steven went back to fiddling with his water glass. “It sounds weird to sound nostalgic over, but there’s just… less pressure to be happy in the Midwest.”</p>
<p>“It’s because it’s so overcast over The Great Lakes that everyone has a vitamin D deficiency. They’re all clinically depressed; it’s wonderful.”</p>
<p>“I mean,” Steven said, “it’s not <em>wonderful.</em>”</p>
<p>“If you go somewhere in Chicago and someone goes, ‘how ya doin?’ and you go ‘not good’; they say, ‘that sucks.’ If you say ‘not good’ in California, they say ‘then go to the beach.’ Someone actually said that to me. To my face. A properly sad person would never say that.”</p>
<p>“I’m sure they were just trying to be helpful.”</p>
<p>“Steven, did anyone in the <em>history </em>of Ohio ever respond to ‘not good’ with ‘go to the beach’?”</p>
<p>“No,” Steven conceded. “But then, Lake Erie is hardly the Pacific.”</p>
<p>Shane sighed and watched Steven’s fingers leave trails on the glass’ condensation. “I miss weather. Thunderstorms. Tornadoes. Cold. Rain.”</p>
<p>“Are you homesick?”</p>
<p>Shane shrugged. “A little, I suppose. But then, I would think most people get homesick when they’re… I wouldn’t say ‘worried’ but… concerned. About how things are going to turn out.”</p>
<p>Steven nodded and reached into his pocket. “Well, I don’t want you to feel homesick.”</p>
<p>Shane watched as Steven reached into his pocket and pulled out a matchbook. Steven struck the match and it was like all light got sucked out of the room and pulled into that small point. He lowered the fire down to a candle that seemed to manifest out of the darkness. As the wick caught, the room slowly brightened again and Shane realized that it was different from what it was before.</p>
<p>Soft music played. People sat in suits and evening gowns. Finely-dressed waiters moved effortlessly from table to table, hands and glassware moving like delicate cogs in a clock. Red wine was brought to the table with warm bread and Shane didn’t know what to do with himself. This wasn’t like any of the restaurants he was used to going to; he wasn’t accustomed to a waitstaff that moved so silently and quickly that they practically became invisible. He wasn’t accustomed to people who averted their eyes when he looked their way as hey unfurled the napkin and draped it across his lap, not responding to his awkwardly whispered “thank you”s. Steven was nonplussed by the experience, clearly familiar with a lifestyle Shane had rarely ever encountered.</p>
<p>“Is this more suitable?” Steven asked as the waitstaff left their table.</p>
<p>“I mean it’s nice,” Shane said, not wanting to sound ungrateful. “But I hardly call it home.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you?”</p>
<p>Shane was about to volley back, but stopped when Steven nodded towards the window with a half-smile. He turned and his breath caught when he looked outside. Out the window, so close he could see pigeons in the architecture, was the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower. They were lit up gold at night, the steady rain casting them in a slight haze that looked like a halo. Shane got to his feet and walked to the window, the percussion of the rain drowning out mumbled conversations and muted music. Nearly pressed against the glass he looked down and saw a distant street flooded with streetlamps and the headlights and taillights of cars. Black umbrellas and black coats moved as dark dots along the sidewalk, tilting against the wind that breathed between the buildings.</p>
<p>He was back in Chicago.</p>
<p>Shane turned to see Steven approach him by the window. “You know, it’s strange. I feel like I keep coming back to Chicago… but not entirely.”</p>
<p>“Does this feel different?”</p>
<p>Shane lightly placed his fingertips against the solid, cold window, looking back out at the buildings across the street. “A little. It feels like I’m actually up.” He looked towards the front doors of the restaurant. “It feels like those… might not lead back to the hotel.”</p>
<p>“And they don’t have to,” Steven said. “You can be home. Ride the I-90 all the way to Schaumberg if you want.”</p>
<p>Shane gave him a sad smile. “If only it were always that easy.”</p>
<p>Steven walked them back to their table and pulled out Shane’s chair for him. Shane awkwardly sat down, trying to fold his legs under the table while Steven nudged the chair under him. He watched as Steven sat down elegantly, his chair not even angled slightly to either side.</p>
<p>“I’m…” Shane cleared his throat and took a sip of his wine. “I’m not accustomed to this as much as you are.”</p>
<p>“You know, there’s more to me than gold and truffles.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down at the sheer quantity and variety of dinner forks in front of him.</p>
<p>“I enjoy it, sure,” Steven said. “I save up for clothes and food the way most people save up for vacations. There’s nothing wrong with that.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean to imply there was anything wrong.”</p>
<p>“I think some people think it makes me inaccessible. I know it makes Ryan uncomfortable.”</p>
<p>“You two have very different views of food.”</p>
<p>“He eats a lot of burritos.”</p>
<p>Shane wheezed a laugh. “Yes, he does.”</p>
<p>“And he can’t cook.” Steven took a sip of wine before redirecting. “I enjoyed that pie making video you made for <em>Weird Wonderful</em>. Whenever I see a blueberry pie now I think that we should do a cooking show together. I haven’t nailed down what it would be like yet. I know you don’t like competitions. A cooking showcase?”</p>
<p>“You would have to lead that,” Shane said. “Sounds fun, depending on how much time I’ll need to spend on it. I mean, no offense, but <em>Puppet History</em> and <em>Weird Wonderful</em> are pretty demanding. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t want to give your show any less than it deserves. If you had a sort of thing where I can sit down and comment on food as you talk about it, that’s more my speed right now. Oh! If you talk about food mysteries you can call it <em>Watcher: Unproofed</em>. You proof bread, right? That’s a thing? Proofing?”</p>
<p>Steven laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I think that Ryan might not be a huge fan of that idea. Especially if I do it in his theory voice.”</p>
<p>Shane grinned and shook his head.</p>
<p>“I mean,” Steven said, fingers turning the stem of his wine glass, “we can do something, can’t we? Our energy works.”</p>
<p>Shane shrugged. “Perhaps we can try.”</p>
<p>“Either way,” Steven said, lifting his wine glass and leaning over the table. “You’re right, I need to tone down my image. And I had a plan to do it. Remember?”</p>
<p>Shane backed up as Steven turned his glass and poured a pool of red wine into Shane’s bread plate. He was about to say something when Steven gestured to the wine and sat back in his chair. Curious, Shane looked down into the wine and, like the water-filled tree stumps in the forest, a memory began to play.</p>
<p>Shane saw himself in the Watcher office, working late. His desktop was windows layered on top of windows as he flipped between his <em>Puppet History </em>outline and public domain image searches. As he clicked through and took notes, Shane was faintly aware of a keyboard, continually tapping. Steven was the only other person working late. While Shane was only still there because he had hit a good rhythm in his research and had nothing else to do, Steven often stayed after hours. Shane wasn’t sure exactly what Steven was always doing, but he knew that it kept getting them sponsored videos. He had once offered to help, but Steven only looked at him with mild alarm before politely declining.</p>
<p>Shane was so absorbed in his work he didn’t even notice that Steven had stopped typing and went to the snack counter. It even took him a few seconds to process that Steven had said anything.</p>
<p>“Pardon?”</p>
<p>“I asked if you wanted me to make you some matcha.”</p>
<p>“Oh! Yes, of course.” Shane saved his work and leaned back in his chair, arching his back. “If this is anything like what you made for the Slim Reaper cocktail, how could I possibly say no?”</p>
<p>“No booze in this one, though.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t need it.” Shane took two mugs out of the cupboard and set them down on the counter. He leaned over to watch Steven whisk the matcha to a froth. “I was just doing some more <em>Puppet History </em>research.”</p>
<p>“A lot of little details go into that show.” Steven set his bamboo whisk aside and poured matcha and milk into the two mugs. “I hope I’ll get to come back. I liked that first class.”</p>
<p>“Maybe season after this.”</p>
<p>“I can always pinch-hit.” He lightly clinked their mugs together and took a sip.</p>
<p>“What are we toasting?”</p>
<p>Steven smiled and shrugged. “Good news.”</p>
<p>“What news?”</p>
<p>“Well, don’t hold me to it yet because it’s still in its very early stages. But…” Steven looked around to make sure that they were alone in the office. “I may have found a place that will do Professor plushies.”</p>
<p>Shane’s eyes widened as he took in Steven’s well-deserved smugly proud expression.</p>
<p>“Stylized. I think it would have to be a chibi version with clothes sewn on. But yes, it is possible to make and make affordable.”</p>
<p>“We can’t dip in quality in the name of ‘affordability,’” Shane warned. “The Professor’s image <em>is </em>the show.”</p>
<p>“I’ll have plenty of prototypes for you and the Professor to look over and approve.”</p>
<p>“Oh, he’ll love them.” Shane smiled as Steven laughed. “Really, thanks for this. I honestly thought we were years away from being able to afford to do something like that.”</p>
<p>“I mean, nothing’s finalized yet. But it doesn’t look like pulling this off would be as difficult as we thought it would be.” He hesitated. “We make a decent team, you know.”</p>
<p>Shane was about to praise Watcher, but there was something about Steven’s demeanor that shifted. The way he held himself wasn’t as confident as it was a few seconds ago. There were small signals that Shane wasn’t even entirely consciously aware of; signals that told Shane that Steven wasn’t talking about Watcher. Instead he simply said, “Yeah?”</p>
<p>“You have some wonderful ideas, Shane. But, let’s be honest, you are terrible at self-promotion.” He put up his hand. “I’m not talking about twitter. I’m talking about the pitches we have to give. You like to pretend like it’s not the case, but you’re pretty humble when it comes to your own work. Humble to a fault.”</p>
<p>Shane shrugged as he felt his cheeks and neck sting with a pink flush that he was sure was quite visible. “We’re a good team. What can I say?”</p>
<p>“We should do a show together,” Steven said. It was a response that came a bit too fast, but Shane was willing to overlook that.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Shane thought for a second before he continued. “I mean, there are a lot of me and Ryan shows. Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t want you feeling like a third-wheel. We can come up with something with the two of us or you and Ryan.”</p>
<p>“Well, I have a pitch for you. For a you and me show, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Oh.” Shane tried to latch onto Steven’s excitement, but it was difficult to ignore the voice in the back of his head telling him that this was something that Steven should have proposed in front of Ryan and Katie. He told himself that Steven was just riding the high of making progress on the plushies. Hell, Shane was still excited about them too.</p>
<p>“Here’s what I’m thinking: we fly into Cleveland- No! Stay with me! We fly into Cleveland, rent a car, and drive to Chicago. I know, not that long of a drive. But, here’s what we’re gonna do - we are going to experience some of the best local food the Midwest has to offer. Mom and pop restaurants in small towns.”</p>
<p>“So kinda like <em>Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives</em>?”</p>
<p>“Except exclusively Midwestern. There’s a certain…” Steven gestured vaguely. “A certain fullness to the food there. Something that only a fellow Midwesterner can appreciate. Also, I’m thinking we can focus on places established by immigrants and run by their descendants. I’m sure there’s a Polish place I can find for when we get closer to Chicago.”</p>
<p>Shane smiled. “I’d like that.”</p>
<p>“We should go right after you shoot all the spooky season series,” Steven said. “Right as the leaves are starting to change. I’ve missed that. Honestly, I feel like I’ve just been looking for a reason to go back there around that time. Just to see it again.”</p>
<p>Shane leaned against the counter and sipped at his matcha. The prospect was inviting. Of course it was. Steven’s shows all had something to do with food and culture and identity and connection. Shane would be honored to be part of something that aimed to do anything so significant. He wanted to go back and see the trees turn golden and fall asleep with a full stomach, listening to rain. He wanted to be just as excited as Steven was. He tried to push aside any wondering, any suspicion, any “why now” and simply be happy in that moment.</p>
<p>He wanted to.</p>
<p>The memory ended and Shane was no longer in the restaurant far above the streets of Chicago. Instead of looking at a puddle of wine he was looking down into a cup of coffee. He looked around. He was sitting in a booth at a diner, the kind with a long countertop and kitchen window – the kind that reminded him of old television. The booth was against a large window, and Shane could see the quiet streets of a small town. It was raining heavily, water rolling off the awning like a waterfall. The trees were bare and swayed in the wind. It was the kind of weather that made him glad to be inside where it was light and warm.</p>
<p>He looked across the table and saw Steven. He wore a hoodie with drawstrings that dangled down to the tabletop when he leaned forward to rest his chin on his hand. He wore glasses and his hair wasn’t as orderly and styled as Shane was used to seeing it. There was a certain softness about him – like he had only just woken up. When Shane looked down at himself, he saw he was in his flannel and jeans again.</p>
<p>Steven took up a glass of soda and sipped at the straw. “There’s more to me than gold and truffles.”</p>
<p>“I know.” Shane brought the coffee cup to his lips; it had warm and had a bitter earthiness that only exists in small diners with coffee pots older than he was. “You never pitched that show.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>Steven shrugged as he looked down at his drink. “I don’t think I wanted it for the right reasons.”</p>
<p>“It had a solid premise.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well…” Steven fiddled with the drawstring on his hoodie as he thought. “Maybe I just saw it as a way to get closer to you.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Shane said. “Steven, if you want to hang out more, we can. I mean, I guess I always just thought you were too busy, that us sitting around and talking would be too much like work. That’s not to say that I think it’s work. It’s not. I was just afraid that y-”</p>
<p>Steven reached across the table and placed his hand over Shane’s.</p>
<p>And Shane understood.</p>
<p>“Oh.”</p>
<p>Steven looked up at Shane. “I thought you knew. I thought I was being too obvious. The thought of pitching that idea in front of the others was… it was humiliating. I was so sure that they would see right through me.”</p>
<p>“Well, I… I thought it just sounded like a good idea.” Shane cleared his throat. “I mean, you don’t pitch these sorts of shows just because you want to go on dinner dates. After all that time you travelled with Andrew you didn’t-”</p>
<p>Steven looked away and made a quiet little noise in his throat as his cheeks turned pink.</p>
<p>“Oh. I see.”</p>
<p>“We… erm…” Steven swallowed hard. “As soon as we had the funds to request separate rooms I did. It felt… dangerous to be alone in a bedroom with him. I felt scandalized whenever we walked in our room together. It was like everyone who saw us knew that I was drawn to him. I wear my heart on my sleeve sometimes, I know that.”</p>
<p>“But you were willing to go on the road with someone again,” Shane said.</p>
<p>Steven nodded.</p>
<p>“Did you picture us sharing a room?”</p>
<p>Steven’s eyes widened as he stared at Shane, pink blush darkening. He tried to speak, but all he could manage to get out was a ragged laugh and stammered syllables that reminded Shane of running feet clambering to a stop against gravel.</p>
<p>“It’s okay if you did,” Shane said with a gentle laugh. “You’re allowed to imagine. You’re allowed to… to want something like that.”</p>
<p>“But I can’t tell you that!” Steven had buried his face in his free hand, nudging his glasses up towards his forehead. “You’re not supposed to know.”</p>
<p>“You’re okay, Steven.” Shane turned his hand under Steven’s and held him, running his thumb over Steven’s knuckles. “You don’t have to tell me anything. But I want you to know that this isn’t something you need to be ashamed of.”</p>
<p>Steven groaned, clearly too embarrassed to continue. He did, however, squeeze Shane’s hand in understanding.</p>
<p>“Besides,” Shane continued. “I still think it’s a good premise for a show.”</p>
<p>“So,” Steven said, getting his voice back under him. “You want to go back to the Midwest?”</p>
<p>Shane smiled. “For a while.” He hesitated before adding, “But, right now, more than anything, I want to get back to Ryan. Make sure he’s okay.”</p>
<p>The smile in Steven’s eyes vanished and his hand stiffened in Shane’s grasp.</p>
<p>“I didn’t say that to be dismissive,” Shane quickly said. “I mean, I want you to pitch that show. And also… right now, I want to focus on Ryan.”</p>
<p>“No, I understand.” Steven drew back his hand. “I understand.”</p>
<p>“Don’t hold this against him, Steven.”</p>
<p>“No, I get it.”</p>
<p>“Steven-”</p>
<p>A chime sounded from somewhere behind Shane and a cold gust blew over him. He closed his eyes as a shiver passed over him. When he opened his eyes again he was back at the restaurant in the strange hotel. There was a plate in front of him of mostly-eaten food. Only a few wilted greens and bones were left. He felt full, but not satisfied. Steven shoved his chair back from the table.</p>
<p>“A pleasure talking to you, Shane.”</p>
<p>“No, wait.”</p>
<p>“I have some things to attend to,” he said as he stood. “Things to keep the hotel running.”</p>
<p>“Steven, I didn’t mean it like that, I meant-”</p>
<p>“I’ll check in on you later.”</p>
<p>Shane got to his feet. “For christssakes, I didn’t say it to rub your nose in it!”</p>
<p>The conversations in the restaurant quieted slightly and Shane felt people turn to see what that commotion was. His cheeks were warm at the sudden attention, but not as warm as Steven’s must have been. Even from behind Shane could see a heavy flush creep up his neck and settle in his ears. His shoulders tensed and he took a deep breath, saying nothing before he walked out of the restaurant.</p>
<p>Shane carded his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Goddammit.”</p>
<p>Contrary to popular belief, Shane could handle having emotions. Other people having emotions, however, was a different story. Other people having emotions at him… or rather for him, was something else altogether. He was perhaps aloof to a fault. According to Scott and the few people he still talked to in high school, he was a bit of a heartthrob. He had no idea at the time and still hard a hard time believing it. There were interactions he had in college and at BuzzFeed that popped into his memory, only for Shane to realize for the first time and years later that he was being flirted with.</p>
<p>Shane wasn’t a people-pleaser, but in that moment he wished he could have been the person Steven needed him to be. It certainly sounded easier than standing alone in the middle of the restaurant with half the customers staring at him. God, had he turned into the kind of man who made a scene whenever things got even slightly too much for him to handle? He needed to get out of there. He could decide what he was going to say to patch things up with Steven later, but in that moment he just needed to leave.</p>
<p>Shane nudged his chair back into place and started walking towards the doors. As he made his way across the room, one of the circus performers got up and stood right in the middle of his path. He was still wearing his half-Shane-mask gave a little flourish, motioning Shane to stop. Reluctantly, he did.</p>
<p>The performer bowed low, so low their forehead lightly touched the leg they extended out in front of them. He glanced up at Shane and then at the few tables that turned to face him. Then he stood and turned his head upwards, mouth agape. He reached his thumb and forefinger past his lips and over his tongue, emerging with a knife nearly two feet long. There was a polite applause that Shane reluctantly joined in on. As fascinating as he may have found the circus acts, he wasn’t in the mood.</p>
<p>The sword swallower considered the knife before asking with a raspy, used voice, “Did it hurt?”</p>
<p>Shane glanced around for a second before he realized that the sword swallower was talking to him. “Excuse me?”</p>
<p>The sword swallower smiled at him, but not with his eyes. “It has never been <em>my</em> throat, Shane.”</p>
<p>Shane looked at the knife in the sword swallower’s hands – a solid thing he tapped against his palm. It punctuated beats of silence as Shane realized that the man in front of him was no longer the sole center of attention. Shane looked at him and the table of circus performers, sad-eyed masks staring back at him.</p>
<p>“I…” Shane looked back at the sword swallower before asking softly, “Why are you doing this? There’s enough I’m trying to figure out withou-”</p>
<p>“-Did it hurt?”</p>
<p>Before Shane could react, the sword swallower had crashed into him and knocked him to the ground. He fell bruisingly hard, the man somewhat on top of him. The split second that followed this moved so slowly that he couldn’t escape it.</p>
<p>First, Shane realized that he had the breath knocked out of him. Then he tried to gasp for air.</p>
<p>He couldn’t.  </p>
<p>He was aware of a hand. Knuckles pressing against his parted lips. His teeth hit something rigid in his mouth. Again, he tried to breathe and nothing came.</p>
<p>It was then that he realized that he couldn’t see the knife anymore.</p>
<p>He told himself it was a trick. That this was a sleight of hand done for the benefit of the small audience.</p>
<p>Then someone screamed. There was shouting. The man was pulled off of him but the solid, hard <em>thing </em>in Shane’s mouth remained. He tried to swallow but he couldn’t. It was like there was already something in his throat, something that his throat couldn’t move or compress.</p>
<p>He tried not to think of how he couldn’t see the knife anymore as he reached for his mouth. There were people gathered around him now and one grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him. Again, he tried to breathe but nothing came. His lungs were burning. His eyes watered as each individual voice became less and less distinct, turning into a wall of sound. Voices were like droplets in a waterfall they were so indecipherable from each other or the whole.</p>
<p>A small sound came from Shane’s throat as he tried to gasp around the obstruction. Air. But barely. Not really.</p>
<p>The last thing Shane realized was that it wouldn’t be enough.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. And You Know Something is Happening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>And you know something is happening</em>
  <br/>
  <em>But you don't know what it is</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p><hr/><p>Something rigid was in Shane’s mouth and pressed his lips against his teeth. It was uncomfortable, but he again found himself in that strange state between awake and asleep – a place where he couldn’t move and could barely open his eyes. It was like sleep itself weighed him down, dragging him down into the mattress and back into unconsciousness.</p><p>He was breathing again, at least.</p><p>If he was carried back to his room, it didn’t look like it once did. It was larger. Brighter. The bed was moved. As he grasped at consciousness Shane could hear voices.</p><p>“It could have been so much worse.” It was his father. “At least he was healthy going into this.”</p><p>“It would have been different if he had asthma or a history of pneumonia.” That was Scott. “And he doesn’t smoke.”</p><p>“He has a lot of good things going for him,” Shane’s father said. “Doesn’t he, Sher?”</p><p>Shane knew his mother was here but didn’t hear her answer.</p><p>There was a knock at the door. And silence. It was a silence that Shane didn’t expect from his family. They were usually pretty direct, dealing with things as they came. It was rare for them to not respond to something as simple as a knock. He couldn’t even remember a time when the four of them just stood there, as if they had locked themselves from action.</p><p>Scott was the first to move. He crossed the room in Shane’s line of sight – blurred from partially-closed eyes and overall poor vision.</p><p>“May I come in?” It was Ryan. “I’m heading out, but I’m going to come right back here as soon as I find some clothes.” He cleared his throat. “What are they saying?”</p><p>Shane’s father spoke up. “We’re hopeful, but after last night, things are looking worse than they were.”</p><p>“I suspected. I… erm… this is the first I’ve seen him like this.”</p><p>Then Shane’s mother spoke. “There’s a forty percent chance that he’ll never wake up.”</p><p>Her words were like a sinkhole in the room. Shane’s mother wasn’t necessarily a superstitious person, but she did somewhat believe in speaking things into existence. There were a lot of things that she didn’t talk about or even let others talk about, as if saying them would help them come true. Disappointing election predictions. Mentioning uninvited guests. Shane had lightly teased her about it – both of them knowing that simply saying something doesn’t make it real. She would never go as far as to blame someone for a prediction coming true; it was just something she avoided.</p><p>Shane wondered if Ryan knew that. If Ryan knew that that was why what she said seemed to pull all the air out of the room. If Ryan knew that Sherry putting things so bluntly came from her experiencing something that had grabbed her worldview and wrenched it from its proper place. </p><p>While Shane thought about this, her words themselves seemed to sit in front of Shane like they were some sentient, tangible thing. <em>A forty percent chance that you, Shane, will never wake up</em>.</p><p>This concept didn’t come like a revelation, but like a spot of mold on a bathroom ceiling. It was the sort of thing that he didn’t want to acknowledge, hoping that he was mistaken or that it would somehow clear itself up. But the entire time it had been spreading, getting worse and worse. He was sure that, if he really took the time, he could figure out what strange, hard thing was sitting uncomfortably in his mouth. Perhaps he already knew, but refused to acknowledge it. Like doing so would suddenly make it real.</p><p>He was his mother’s son.</p><p>The room had gone quiet after his mother spoke. It was hard to say how long the uneasy silence had lasted. If Shane had any say in this, he would have found a way to get Ryan out. He didn’t have to be here.</p><p>“I was the driver,” Ryan said, his voice quiet and stiff.</p><p>“Ryan,” Scott said. “We don’t blame you. Of course we don’t… Ryan, this could have happened to anyone.”</p><p>“No!” Ryan breathed heavily before continuing. “No, it couldn’t have happened to anyone. It’s just me. Just me. Me and my fucking… I should have known better than to…”</p><p>Shane knew this tone well. Fear was an easy enough thing to identify on anyone, but Shane knew Ryan’s particular brand of it intimately well. The words were coming fast and he spiraled around an idea like water going down a drain. It was how he acted soon before he would turn heel and move to head back towards the car. This didn’t happen all the time, but enough for Shane to know the warning signs. It was when Shane stepped in and tried to calm him down off camera and before Ryan could walk out on his own shoot. Before fear made Ryan abandon what he had worked for.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” Ryan said; the warm, shaking, calloused touch of his hand lifting away from Shane’s wrist. “I’m sorry, I have to… I’m sorry.”</p><p>Shane heard the curtain draw and the door open as Ryan left. In the stillness of the room that followed, all Shane wanted was to run after him. His thoughts trailed behind Ryan as he lay, unable to move.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Shouting the word "Now"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Now you see this one-eyed midget<br/>Shouting the word "NOW"</em>
  <br/>
  <em>[...]</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And you say, "What does this mean?"</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And he screams back, "You're a cow</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Give me some milk</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Or else go home”</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>When Shane came to, he was in the hallway of the hotel, stumbling towards the lobby. There was still something hard in his mouth and Shane reached past his lips to get it out. As he pulled, something rigid and metal dragged through his throat and scraped unsettlingly against his teeth. Shane gagged as he pulled the object out far enough for him to begin to see it, the bottom still pressing inside his throat. As soon as his tongue hit the end of it, Shane choked and threw the thing clattering to the ground. Seeing the sword swallower’s knife lie on the floor, wet and warm, was enough to make him double-over and dry heave at the memory of taking it down his throat. He braced himself against the archway and pressed his forehead to the cold wall, trying to catch his breath.</p>
<p>“Shane? Hey, easy there.” It was Steven. Shane couldn’t see him, but he heard him get up from behind the front desk and approach him. “You shouldn’t be out of bed.”</p>
<p>Shane closed his eyes tight and tried to remember the conversation he had just heard in his dream. A dream where things made more sense than they did here. A dream where he was dying. He couldn’t move. His mother was there. And…</p>
<p>“Ryan,” Shane said, his voice sounding more frayed and used than he expected. “He ran off. I have to find him. I have…” Shane stopped when he saw the defeated and exhausted expression on Steven’s face – suddenly remembering a different conversation. “I… Steven.”</p>
<p>“No, I understand.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t say it to hurt you.”</p>
<p>“I know. You’re not like that.”</p>
<p>“Steven, we need help!”</p>
<p>There was something about the ragged quality of Shane’s voice that came from existential confusion and the fact that there was a knife in his throat not even a full two minutes ago. The desperate tone was entirely unintentional, but it made Steven pause, his expression softening.</p>
<p>“Ever since I’ve arrived,” Shane continued, “I’ve been puzzling over how I got here and what happened to Ryan. I think I’m starting to understand. But Ryan, he blames himself for all this. Steven, you saw what happened to me when I thought Ryan was my responsibility. Imagine what he must be going through thinking this is his <em>fault</em>.”</p>
<p>Steven’s brow furrowed and he pursed his lips. Shane recognized it as Steven trying not to say something. For a flash, Shane was positive that he could read that expression. That Steven did put Ryan at fault for this. But Shane tried to shove that interpretation aside. Steven was the sort of person who saw the best in others – it was a philosophy that he did his best to live by. Perhaps he didn’t think it at all. Perhaps Shane only thought he did because of his own fear and bitterness at his situation.</p>
<p>Shane sighed deeply, trying to get his breaths back under him. “Did you see where he went?”</p>
<p>Steven gave Shane a melancholy but supportive smile and gently guided him to the lobby’s elevator. “I didn’t see exactly, but there’s a place I think he would disappear to. I’m not sure precisely where it is, but I know it’s on the seventeenth floor.”</p>
<p>“The seventeenth?”</p>
<p>Steven nodded. He called the elevator and the doors opened almost immediately. Shane walked in but Steven lingered, hand keeping the doors from closing. “I don’t know how much I complicated anything,” he said. “But I want you to know you can trust me. So can Ryan.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded, but neither made any motion to let it rest at that.</p>
<p>“I know there are some guys out there who think of friendship as something lesser than a romantic relationship. I’m not like that. I wasn’t looking for something ‘more than’ friendship. Just something in addition-to. I don’t need romance to respect you. I want you to know that. I don’t view it as some second-place prize.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and felt a lump form in his sensitive throat. He remembered sitting on the bed with Ryan after the convention and wanting to say something very similar. He remembered wanting to kiss the back of Ryan’s neck during the whale tour and needing to say those exact words as soon as they had a moment alone. But he didn’t. Whenever he even considered broaching the subject, Shane was reminded that Ryan still had things to unlearn from his frat boy days. Even if Ryan had more-or-less outgrown his internalized homophobia, Shane was still afraid that Ryan thought there was a wide, uncrossable canyon between friendship and romantic love. If that was the case, Shane wasn’t sure how he could convince Ryan that he didn’t see it like that. He wasn’t sure if he should even try to convince him of anything.</p>
<p>Shane reached out and put his hand over Steven’s. “I know.”</p>
<p>Steven leaned into the elevator, hand still on the door. “We’re okay, Shane. And I’m okay with Ryan too.” He pushed the button for the seventeenth floor. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”</p>
<p>Steven stepped out of the elevator and pulled his hand away from Shane’s grasp and the door, allowing it to finally close. Shane groaned a sigh as he leaned against the wall of the elevator. There were things that a sympathetic pat to the hand just couldn’t communicate. Shane wasn’t sure if he needed to be more brazen or just needed more time, but there was something keeping him from really talking to anyone. Whatever it was, Shane was sure it was the same thing that left so much of his friendship with Ryan unsaid.</p>
<p>On the seventeenth floor the doors opened to a hallway, not unlike the hall of guest rooms on the first floor. The hallway was long and narrow and every door looked identical. Not sure where to start, Shane tried to turn the handle of the door closest to the elevator. It was locked. The next closest door was locked too. And the next. And so Shane continued, pressing down on handles just hard enough to confirm that they were locked before he let go and moved on. He didn’t jiggle any handles or call out. He just kept testing.</p>
<p>Shane wasn’t entirely sure how he was so certain that Ryan wouldn’t lock himself away. Ryan may have been the sort of person who would run and perhaps even the sort of person who would hide, but he wasn’t the type to make himself unreachable. Even when they had their worst fights, they never cut communication entirely. That just wasn’t the sort of person Ryan was. And so Shane already knew he was on the right path when he reached a door that wasn’t even entirely closed. He knew he was on the right path even before he looked inside.</p>
<p>The inside of the room, oddly, looked like a regular hotel room. Two queen beds, a television, a dresser, a desk and office chair. On the far wall was a floor-to-ceiling window and matching glass door, also partially opened. Shane could see outside, but it wasn’t the view of the pine forest that he had come to be familiar with. Instead, Shane saw a beach. A clear sky. Sunlight glinting against water. Palm trees. For as long as Shane lived in California and as much as he enjoyed swimming, he rarely visited the beach. But, for Ryan, it and Disney were an anchor. They were a home for him, and Ryan grew homesick easily.</p>
<p>Shane walked through the hotel room and out the door. It was strange to walk out and experience light that wasn’t blinding. Light that was simply bright and warm. There was a breeze coming in from over the water, lifting the scent of salt and seaweed and rustling Shane’s hair. He stepped onto the boardwalk that connected the hotel room and the beach, looking around. From this perspective, the hotel room stood alone on sandy grass, leading out to rolling hills covered in green and brown tall grass with no other structure in sight. The beach was coastal dunes, mostly, leading out to a short strip of sand before dipping down into turquoise water.</p>
<p>Shane walked out onto the sand, looking around, sure he would see Ryan behind one of the dunes. He made his way around their wide bases as he weaved between them, staying close to the shore. Although it wasn’t a sort of place he was all that familiar with, Shane enjoyed spending time away from the oppressively looming woods. He was so relaxed by the sound of water against the shore that Shane barely even noticed the needle-like prick against the back of his neck. As he staggered on uneasy footing and sank into the gentle sand, he wondered if something had bit him. Cheek resting against the warm beach, Shane thought that he should perhaps rest his eyes. He could always ask Steven to look at the bug bite later.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Shane opened his eyes and quickly came to realize that he couldn’t move. However, this wasn’t like the handful of other times he had woken up unable to move. This time, he could feel something like thread crisscrossed all along his body. It wrapped around his waist and his chest, his legs, his arms, and each finger, tethering them to the ground. It was tied to his hair, tugging on it and keeping Shane from even turning his head. Shane tried to lift an arm and felt the thread cut into his skin, dull and painful. He tried to look around as much as he could without moving his head. All around him he saw small people – people with the build of fully-grown adults, but few stood more than an inch tall. They stood on a sort of scaffolding made out of twigs and reeds and looked down at Shane.</p>
<p>It was then that Shane was aware of a faint movement on his chest, barely more noticeable than a fly walking. It moved across his chest and then climbed up his chin. Whatever it was, Shane tried to shift it off, only to be met with a sharp jab to his lip.</p>
<p>A voice spoke up. “I know this isn’t how you treat someone offering you free advice.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down his face and saw a small person walking on him. The small man climbed onto Shane’s nose and stood at the tip of it, staring down at him. He was positioned in such a way that Shane had to close one eye and squint in order to see him at all; and even that was a strain on the eyes. This small man was the same Shane had seen in the circus, complete with his own tiny Shane-mask, which he carefully removed. Underneath it was a man’s face with a patch over one eye. Shane wished he could have gotten a better look at him, but the man was standing so close that he was physically painful to focus on.</p>
<p>“Well,” the small man said. “Why are you hiding from him?”</p>
<p>“What?” Shane tried to move his head and knock the small man off his face, but the thread that anchored his hair was too strong. “I’m not hiding from anyone. If anything, he’s hiding from me.”</p>
<p>The small people around Shane jeered and shouted, indistinct. The man on Shane’s nose stomped his foot and reworded the question: “Why haven’t you talked to him properly?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“You’ve had him at your disposal for days now and you’ve barely said a word. Why bother taking him in at all?”</p>
<p>“Are you talking about Ryan?” Shane asked as he tried to keep his focus on the small man. “He’s unresponsive.”</p>
<p>“That’s not a reason!”</p>
<p>The other small people shouted in agreement.</p>
<p>“Well what do you want?” Shane snapped. “Do you want me to sit and talk at him until I talk myself into some revelation? I’ll take care of him, I’ll look after him, I’ll do it for the rest of my life if I have to, but I won’t sit there and talk day in and day out to him when he can’t hear me. When he can’t answer. You have no right to tell me to miss him like that.”</p>
<p>“Well what were you going to do when you found him?” the small man demanded. “Just pick him up and carry him back?”</p>
<p>“No. And that’s none of your business.”</p>
<p>“You really wouldn’t say a single word?”</p>
<p>“Okay, okay, fine! I was going to tell him that I’m here for him and that he shouldn’t blame himself for all this.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean by ‘all this’?”</p>
<p>Shane sighed deep, his ribs straining against the thread as his chest tried to expand properly. “I don’t know what happened entirely. I know I’m asleep. There was an accident. I’m pretty sure I’m in a hospital. I… I’m pretty sure I’m dying. I need him to know that this isn’t his fault. I can’t let him blame himself.”</p>
<p>The man on Shane’s nose sat down. “So, you’ve figured that out.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I suppose I have.”</p>
<p>“This is all a dream.”</p>
<p>“Intellectually, I know that,” Shane said. “But usually when I realize I’m dreaming I wake up right away. I never get to do the fun dream stuff. Wanna tell me how to fly?”</p>
<p>The small man clicked his tongue. “Flying. Is that that best you can do?”</p>
<p>“Hey, I’m processing a lot of shit right now. How about you get off my dick about it?”</p>
<p>“May I propose something equally impossible for our esteemed guest? Something just as unthinkable to the waking self as it is to the unconscious?”</p>
<p>“And what is that?”</p>
<p>“A single moment of emotional vulnerability. An eclipse of this stunted façade you created for yourself.”</p>
<p>Shane rolled his eyes. “I don’t have a stunted façade. I have emotions. Just because I don’t talk about them all the time doesn’t mean that I’m hiding them or that they’re not there. In fact, these past few days I have been downright inundated with emotions. I am lousy with emotions over here. I have feelings to spare. I have felt so many fucking things.”</p>
<p>“Alone! You feel them alone.”</p>
<p>“That’s how I prefer it!”</p>
<p>The small man leaned forward, digging his heel into the side of Shane’s nose. “Bull. Shit.”</p>
<p>“Well, it’s true.”</p>
<p>“You are terrified of anyone knowing who you are.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to bother anyone with my problems.”</p>
<p>“Well, then you’re free here!” The man stood again. “You know none of this is real. I’m not here. Neither is Steven. Neither is Obi. That’s not Ryan you’re looking for, just your mental image of him. And nobody is going to be bothered. There’s no outside world to step in.”</p>
<p>“So what’s the point?”</p>
<p>“Practice, you idiot. Say what you want. Do what you want. There are no real consequences here.” He jumped off Shane’s nose and onto his cheek. “Or maybe it’s all an excuse. It’s not that you don’t want to bother Ryan, it’s because you’re afraid of your own emotions. The kind of emotions that want to grab hold of you and control you. You’re afraid that they would slip out and he would know who you really are. Even in a place like this, it still terrifies you.”</p>
<p>Shane didn’t know how to respond to that. He couldn’t deny it, not entirely; not enough. Instead he just scoffed. “So I act in here the same way I do out there. Big deal. How about you let me do this shit on my own time?”</p>
<p>“Because you’re dying!”</p>
<p>Shane fell quiet. He had forgotten that and he wasn’t entirely sure how. It didn’t feel real, he supposed. Or it was just so overwhelming that he shut himself out to the concept entirely. Like seeing Ryan dead when he first came to the hotel, Shane had refused to accept death. He always suspected that that was how he would go out – aware of the inevitability but refusing to confront it until the moment it finally happened. The thing about death that Shane didn’t account for, he was noticing, were the long days and moments spent waiting for it to come.</p>
<p>The man sat own on Shane’s cheek and leaned against his nose. “We’re dying, Shane.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Shane said as the weight of his situation began to weigh on him like thousands of little threads holding him down. “We’re dying.”</p>
<p>“There are things you have wanted to say to him. And you know that need to say something wasn’t just at the convention or on the whale tour. It hovered over each movie night. Each road trip. How many phone calls with him did you end where you felt the words under your tongue?”</p>
<p>“Stop.”</p>
<p>“I won’t.”</p>
<p>“He doesn’t need to know that!” Shane swallowed hard, humiliated by the slight crack in his voice that came through whenever he got upset. “You were made in my own mind, you know what it’s like outside just as well as I do. And do you know when the best time to tell someone that you love them is? When you’re reasonably sure that they love you back.” Shane stared at the sky, not wanting to look at the small man anymore. “He’s a good man and the best friend I’ve ever had. And I know which parts of our relationship are mutual and which are not. It’s my mess. It’s my issue. And I refuse to burden him with it.”</p>
<p>“Have you said your peace?” The small man asked.</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>“Then let me say mine.” He tapped his foot against Shane’s lower eyelid as he thought. “Shane, you may not like thinking about it, but I’ve seen exactly as much of the world as you have. Everyone here has. We are all parts of you, Shane. And we have all seen nearly everything hold you back. There was time holding you back first, you convincing yourself that he was too young for you until one day you looked at him and realized he wasn’t anymore. Then there was distance, you going home for the winter holidays and lying in your childhood bed, clutching a pillow and wishing it were him; but you would stop whenever you returned to California. Culture; you made yourself look at him among his fraternity brothers and told yourself that he couldn’t accept you. And fine, maybe he was a little young at first and maybe being far away made you miss him and maybe he wouldn’t understand. Maybe. But it sounds to me like you’ve spent the last five years looking for excuses for yourself. Tell me right now, has the world been keeping you from him, or have you?”</p>
<p>“Would that make you happy?”</p>
<p>The small man stood. “You know you could walk up to him right now and get the answer you’ve been so afraid of. No actual consequences outside your own head. No awkward return to the office. No ‘we need to talk’ days – weeks - after telling him.” He walked down towards Shane’s chin until the top of the small man’s head disappeared from Shane’s line of sight. “I mean, who knows. Maybe you’ll get what you’re really afraid of: reciprocation.”</p>
<p>“It wouldn’t be real.”</p>
<p>Shane felt the man stop walking. “Shane,” he said. “It’s all you’ve got.”</p>
<p>Shane felt another sting to his neck but managed to stay conscious. Instead, the world only went blurry for a minute or so as the threads wrapped around him loosened and the twig scaffolding was taken down. By the time he was able to see clearly again, all the small people were gone and he was once again alone on the beach. He sat up and brushed the threads off of him and out of his hair as he got to his feet.</p>
<p>Shane walked along the sands and thought of the small man. Of course he didn’t set out planning on telling Ryan anything, but the idea kept turning around in his head and, if only through repeated exposure, it began to look more reasonable.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was because Shane didn’t believe in the afterlife. When he died, he wanted everything to stop. There would be no lingering consciousness, tallying triumph and regret. No space for him to linger in relief or mourning. No answers. No summary. It would just be over. Perhaps it was that that made Shane listen to and count every breath he took as he scanned over the shore for Ryan. Perhaps that was the reason why he was suddenly so aware of time. He was running out of time to <em>know</em>. And there were so many things that he didn’t mind keeping a mystery. But not Ryan.</p>
<p>Never Ryan.</p>
<p>And that was why, when Shane finally found Ryan, sitting in a rowboat that had been stranded on the shore, he guided it back into the water and climbed in. It was why, instead of simply walking the boat along the shallows, Shane paddled them along; back towards the sliding glass door of the hotel room. It was why he stopped paddling as soon as he saw the familiar dunes and the sand-covered planks of the boardwalk.</p>
<p>“Ryan?” Shane said, pulling in the oars and rubbing his arms, sore from rowing. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you. Given, I don’t know much about what happened to us. I know there was a car crash. I know you were driving. But I also know that you never meant for this to happen. Ry, I don’t know how I can tell you this – actually tell you this, I mean – but I have never blamed you for what happened. I blamed the road, I blamed myself, there were times when I was ready to blame Steven (he doesn’t deserve that). But blaming you had never once crossed my mind. I know you would never want things to turn out this way.”</p>
<p>As Shane spoke, Ryan’s body slumped, his head turned down like he was looking into the water.</p>
<p>“Again, I don’t know how to actually tell you this, but if I don’t make it out of this, I don’t want you to think that you’ve killed me. That just isn’t what happened. I don’t want anyone to think that of you, but I especially don’t want you to think that of yourself.”</p>
<p>Ryan shifted a little more, starting to lean over the side of the boat.</p>
<p>“And if I die from this, I don’t want you to go looking for me. I know you’d end up doing it anyways. But I promise you, if I <em>could </em>talk to you after I die, it wouldn’t be through the fucking spirit box, I’ll tell you that. I’ll find some other way. And don’t go to psychics, I think that goes without saying. Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to talk through them anyways, you know that.”</p>
<p>Ryan blinked.</p>
<p>Shane’s eyes widened in surprise and sat up a little straighter despite the pain radiating through his arms and down his back. “Are you waking up? Ry? Are you actually waking up? Can you hear me?”</p>
<p>Ryan tilted his head a little, as if there were something he was trying to see deep in the water.</p>
<p>“What is it?”</p>
<p>Shane also looked over the side. Far below them, Shane could make out a vague dark shape and two points of light. He leaned forward a little more to get a better look and gasped for one last gulp of air as the rowboat tilted with their weight and capsized.</p>
<p>Water swallowed them and Shane reached down to take a death grip on the board he was sitting on. Holding onto the boat, he and Ryan moved with it until they were upside down, the hull sticking up above the water. Shane tried to swim to the surface, but his leg was tangled in the mess of rope that coiled along the bottom of the boat. He was trapped. And he was drowning.</p>
<p>Shane looked to Ryan, eyes wide with panic and the quiet, aching knowledge that he waited too long and now would never know. And then he saw something that made his racing heart skip a beat.</p>
<p>Ryan was looking back at him, a gentle expression across his face. He sat up in his seat and reached across the boat, lightly taking Shane by the arm.</p>
<p>“Breathe, Shane,” Ryan said. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”</p>
<p>Shane stared at Ryan, hardly able to process that he was speaking again, let alone what he had to say. His lungs burned and he tugged on the rope again.</p>
<p>“You’re okay,” Ryan repeated.</p>
<p>Shane opened his mouth and it filled with water. He choked on it and compulsively gasped for air. He breathed. He gasped again and breathed again. He must have sat there for about a minute, gulping breathable water and with a hand pressed over Ryan’s, holding him to his arm.</p>
<p>“I’ve missed you,” Ryan said, tightening his grip. “God, you’ve never felt so far away, Shane.”</p>
<p>Ryan got up, standing with his feet at the bottom of the boat. With the sheet wrapped tight around him and gentle current moving his hair like seaweed, Ryan didn’t even look like he was standing upside down. Tentatively, Shane let go of the plank he was sitting on and moved over so Ryan could sit next to him. Ryan sat close, the side of his thigh pressed against the side of Shane’s; he nuzzled a muscular shoulder against Shane’s chest as Shane put an arm around him.</p>
<p>There were many things Shane wanted to ask in that moment. What had happened to Ryan, what he remembered, if this was all he needed to come back. The kiss. He wanted to ask about the kiss. It embarrassed Shane how much he still cared about and wanted to linger in the kiss, especially when he knew Ryan had been so overwhelmed by guilt. He wanted to tell him again that this isn’t his fault, just in case Ryan didn’t hear him before.</p>
<p>He looked down as Ryan rested his head on Shane’s shoulder. Ryan sighed contentedly and suddenly all the questions slipped away from Shane, like marbles on glass. Shane allowed himself a moment to lose himself in the sensation of Ryan. Warmth. The rigidity of muscle. The softness of his cheek. Calloused hands caressing over the silk-like texture of Shane’s. All the roughness and gentleness of Ryan was there beside him and Shane could never want to leave. He turned his head so his mouth and nose were hidden in Ryan’s hair. Despite how badly he wanted to, Shane held himself back from kissing him. Instead, the two sat in silence as the boat gently rocked with the waves.</p>
<p>Shane tilted his head up, looking to the bottom of the ocean. He could see the two points of light so clearly now – the headlights of a submerged car. Their rental, Shane recognized. He remembered the oncoming car. The way the headlights flickered over branches as the car went down the steep hill. The blackness of the water. And, as he stared at the car and the fish that swam in and out of it, Shane wondered if he and Ryan really could have made it out alive.</p>
<p>“I drowned, didn’t I?”</p>
<p>Ryan nodded and Shane remembered that there was something he had to know.</p>
<p>“I’m in love with you,” Shane said.</p>
<p>“I know.” Ryan pressed his cheek against Shane’s collar before tilting his head to meet his eyes. “I love you too.”</p>
<p>Shane closed his eyes as Ryan sat up a little straighter so he could kiss Shane on the cheek. There was a brief moment where he turned, lips resting against the corner of Ryan’s mouth. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it.</p>
<p>Shane cleared his throat. “That’s very kind of you.” He put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and settled him back down onto the board they were sitting on. “But you didn’t have to do that.”</p>
<p>“Because I’m not real?” Ryan asked. “Because this is a dream?”</p>
<p>“He would never answer it like that. Not so… easily. We both know that.”</p>
<p>Ryan kissed Shane on the shoulder. “You’re allowed to dream,” he said. “You should dream, actually. You should allow yourself at least this one place where this isn’t as… where it doesn’t seem as impossible as it does on the outside. Besides, what you feel for him is real.”</p>
<p>Shane sighed and rubbed his hand down Ryan’s back. “I wish it was this easy. I’m not even talking about your response, I just mean… just telling you. I wish I could do it.”</p>
<p>“What about it are you afraid of?”</p>
<p>Shane opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was like anything he was going to say he somehow spoke to the back of his own throat, where a bubble formed. He coughed and caught it in his palms before it could float to the bottom of the upturned boat. Inside the bubble he saw a scene. He and Ryan were sitting in Shane’s living room, a half-empty popcorn bowl sitting in front of them. Ryan had the PlayStation controller in his hand, pausing the movie. Neither man was looking at each other. Ryan kept opening his mouth, as if he had finally settled on what to say, only to close it and turn away to watch anything but Shane or the screen. Shane tried to downplay it, to laugh off his own confession, but stopped when Ryan put up a hand and shook his head. Ryan started the movie back up, but neither really watched. After a few minutes, Ryan got up and left, leaving Shane more alone than he ever had been.</p>
<p>The moment in the bubble fractured and fell through Shane’s fingers to the bottom of the boat. And as soon as that bubble was out of the way, Shane coughed another into his hands. In this bubble they were in one of BuzzFeed’s too-small recording booths, listening through portions of flagged EVP sessions. They didn’t stand as close as they once did, Shane leaning on the foam wall and Ryan pressing himself flush against the wall opposite. Ryan barely looked at him as he clicked through the audio, clearly just wanting to get this done as quickly as possible. The most he did was glance over, only for a split second and only once in a while, as if he were making sure Shane wasn’t moving any closer. Everything about the interaction stung, but that was the worst part. It was like Ryan didn’t know him at all anymore, like he wasn’t sure if Shane could control himself. It hurt, but it also pissed him off. Just to rattle Ryan’s cage, just to prove that he <em>knew </em>what Ryan was doing, Shane pretended to maybe hear something in the EVP. An instant later, in the silent anger that followed, Shane realized something horrible: he was afraid of Ryan.</p>
<p>Another bubble. Meetings for <em>Unsolved</em> were torture and things were orders of magnitude worse at Watcher. At least for <em>Unsolved</em> Shane could stay quiet and let Ryan take the reins. Watcher was hell. After Ryan told Steven and Katie what was going on between them, Shane could feel his every move, every suggestion, being watched and weighed not for its creativity or merit, but for how it reflected what Shane felt toward Ryan. He needed to constantly prove to them, to Ryan, to himself, that this wasn’t something that needed mediators. That he was perfectly capable of handling rejection but he refused to let this undo everything they had worked for. Every aspect of his life that Ryan touched began to feel like a game of chess; like he had to analyze every decision from every angle to find that one, narrow route that could bring things back to normal. He obsessed over it, watching Ryan with an intensity that he hadn’t before; hoping to find some clue, some direction out of this. All the while, Steven and Katie watched him in concern and pity while Ryan just got angrier and angrier.</p>
<p>Another bubble. Ryan asked Shane to stay after hours and Shane felt physically ill. Ryan told him that they couldn’t work like this anymore. That Shane needed to work on projects that didn’t involve him. That Shane couldn’t accept the two of them only being friends. Shane could say nothing. He wanted to tell Ryan that the projects weren’t something that he plotted out long ago to get close to Ryan. He wanted to tell Ryan that all he wanted was for them to be friends again. He wanted to spit out every memory, every belief that had been guiding him through these social chess games. But none of it mattered. Because this wasn’t about the reality of their situation as much as it was about something that had become undeniable – Ryan wasn’t comfortable around him anymore. Ryan, Shane realized, would be happier if he could somehow forget Shane entirely. Shane had no choice but to agree to take a step back in the company. He felt Ryan’s anger pivot easily to hatred, hatred towards Shane’s silence and hatred towards the way Shane’s voice cracked when he tried to speak.</p>
<p>The bubble fell to the bottom of the boat and Shane hiccupped a stream of smaller moments where he tried to picture what he would do next. How he didn’t want there to be anything after Ryan. He mostly saw himself lying in bed or sitting in the tub, refusing to move until it felt like his muscles would atrophy or his skin would rot off. It wasn’t because Shane was so sure that’s what life would be like as much as it was because he couldn’t imagine things without Ryan. Of course life would become stagnant; and if not in that way then in others. There was nothing worth imagining beyond that final moment with Ryan; and that alone was every reason for Shane to do everything he could to prevent setting this all in motion.   </p>
<p>Ryan took Shane by the hand and the bubbles slowed to a stop. There were so many at the bottom of the boat that there was hardly any water touching the lower half of Shane’s shin. The boat rode high on the water’ surface from being pushed upwards by so much air. It wasn’t enough to lift it out of the water entirely, but it was closer than it was.</p>
<p>“Shane,” Ryan said.</p>
<p>“Don’t.” Shane rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. “I don’t want to think about it.”</p>
<p>“Shane.” Ryan slipped an arm behind Shane and rubbed down his back in slow circles. “It’s alright.” He rested his cheek against Shane’s shoulder. “You know he’ll never let it get that bad.”</p>
<p>Shane sighed. “You can’t promise that.”</p>
<p>“After all these years, you know you <em>do</em> mean something to him. He would work to make sure the two of you would stay friends, would stay together.”</p>
<p>Shane carded his fingers through his hair as he got his breaths back under him again. He put an arm around Ryan and stared out over the water. “I’m…” He cleared his throat. “I’m not one to linger on worst-case scenarios. But that one… that one scares me.”</p>
<p>“It would scare me too.” Ryan turned his head and kissed Shane’s shoulder again. “I know I’m not him. For you, I wish I were. But I want you to know that you can love him here.”</p>
<p>Shane smiled.</p>
<p>Another kiss. “You can love him as much as you want.”</p>
<p>Shane turned to speak, but Ryan caught his mouth before he could say anything. Any thought of words died between their lips as Shane tried to drag Ryan even closer. There was something about this kiss that, strangely, didn’t remind him of the kiss Ryan had given him when he washed his hair. There was a certain awkward hesitance and shaking breath that he couldn’t replicate in dreams. This Ryan was confident. Direct. He knew exactly how to kiss Shane – such a precise fulfilment that Shane thought it was a little predictable. There was no exploration for either of them. Shane tried not to think about that as Ryan climbed onto his lap.</p>
<p>“Familiar?” Ryan asked, short of breath as he broke the kiss. He gasped as Shane leaned in and kissed his neck like he could drink from it. “I know you remembered those dreams I gave you.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and moaned into Ryan’s skin as Ryan unbuttoned Shane’s shirt.</p>
<p>“You like it when he picks you up and sets you on the kitchen counter.” A kiss to Shane’s hair. “Undressing you. Not even saying anything.”</p>
<p>Shane unbuckled his belt for Ryan and undid the button of his fly.</p>
<p>“Or those times in a hot tub.” Ryan mussed Shane’s hair as he spoke. “When all I had to do was walk up to you and we knew exactly what we wanted from each other. You’d really let him do anything to you, wouldn’t you?”</p>
<p>Shane’s eyes were shut tight. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted this right now. This was more him knowing that he was running out of time. And Ryan was so rarely able to move as if here were actually alive here. So why not? Why the fuck not? Was there really any harm in hedonism at this point? Hell, the two of them could sink to the bottom of the ocean and bang it out on the hood of the wrecked car. Shane decided that he wouldn’t mind that: lying on his back and looking up at Ryan and the distant, glimmering ocean waves. If that could be the last thing his consciousness processes before the end. Why not?</p>
<p>The only problem was that it was difficult to get hard while contemplating the imminent conclusion of his own mortality. He supposed some people could get off on that, but it was a bit of an uphill trek for him. Like so many other things, Shane tried to shut existential dread out of his thoughts and just focus on what Ryan was offering him. It shouldn’t be too difficult, Shane reasoned. After all, Ryan was an exceptionally attractive man. And he happened to be madly in love with him.</p>
<p>Ryan brought their lips together again and Shane felt like he could melt in his arms. A solitary finger tilted Shane’s chin up as Ryan kissed him again and let the white sheet wrapped around him fall loose. Shane balled a fist in Ryan’s hair and kept trying to shut out all that wasn’t Ryan. He was so focused that his only thoughts were a rhythmic sigh of “Ryan. Ryan. Ryan.” Like the engine of a train.</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry, Shane.”</p>
<p>Shane thought the phrase in Ryan’s voice before he heard it. Ryan immediately pulled away and a bubble caught between their mouths fell to the floor with the bubbles that fell earlier. Ryan’s hand flew to his mouth and caught another before it could spill out on its own.</p>
<p>“Please wake up.”</p>
<p>Another bubble.</p>
<p>“I need you."</p>
<p>Another.</p>
<p>"Don't leave me."</p>
<p>Another.</p>
<p>"Forgive me. Please forgive me."</p>
<p>Ryan had climbed off of Shane’s lap and sat down next to him again, choking on the bubbles that came to him seemingly involuntarily. Shane had a hand on Ryan’s back, gently rubbing across his shoulders as he gagged on each bubble.</p>
<p>Shane was so focused on Ryan that he didn’t even notice how quickly the bubbles were filling the boat.</p>
<p>“Ryan?” he asked. “What’s going on?”</p>
<p>“I… um…” Ryan coughed. “I think he’s here. I mean, I think he’s in the room with you.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“If you wake up, he’ll be right there.” Ryan gasped for breath and steadied himself against the side of the boat. “He came back.”</p>
<p>“He’s…”</p>
<p>Ryan took Shane’s hands in his, gripping a little too tightly. “Of course he came back.” Ryan looked up and Shane knew he couldn’t hide from Ryan how much this was effecting him. “He cares about you so much, Shane. I don’t know why you have such a hard time seeing that sometimes.”</p>
<p>Shane looked down at their hands, his throat tight.</p>
<p>“You have nothing to be afraid of. I… I mean, so what if he doesn’t love you the same way you love him. He loves you. I mean, what else can you call this?” Ryan swallowed hard. “He would never hurt you like that. You know that’s not him. <em>This </em>is him, Shane. Do you understand?”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and squeezed Ryan’s hands back, wishing he could rub at his stinging eyes.</p>
<p>Ryan was shaking as one more bubble fell from his mouth. It tumbled downwards and the boat began to tilt, as if it had a hard time staying balanced on top of all the bubbles.</p>
<p>“Oh God,” Ryan’s voice said from it as it fell. “I’ve killed him.”</p>
<p>Shane’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “No. Ryan, this isn’t your fault.”</p>
<p>“He can’t hear you.”</p>
<p>“Then wake me up! Wake me up right now. I need to tell him.”</p>
<p>“I can’t! Shane, I don’t know how. I wish I could.”</p>
<p>“Then tell me that I still can!”</p>
<p>“I don’t know that.” Ryan let go of Shane’s hands and pulled him close. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. But, Shane, right now we both just need you to hold on. Please, Shane.”</p>
<p>Shane’s arms were around Ryan. Slowly, the Ryan he was able to hold began to resemble the Ryan Shane knew so well. His awkward brand of affection. The scent of his shampoo. The warmth of him. The way his cheeks become more defined whenever he smile in that broad, stunning way he does. How that feels when his face is against Shane’s chest in a tight embrace. Everything that was distinctly Ryan slowly came into focus and Shane never wanted to let him go.</p>
<p>Shane felt the next bubble form in his own throat. A bubble made of his own fears and in his own voice.</p>
<p>“What if I can’t wake up?”</p>
<p>The bubble fell to the others and as soon as it hit the boat lurched. Shane could feel Ryan draw in a shaking breath in the brief moment before the boat tipped. And then, all at once, they were upright again. The water was beneath them. The shore was within view. And Ryan was, once again, unresponsive.</p>
<p>“Ry?”</p>
<p>Ryan slumped against Shane, his eye closed and expression vacant. Shane kept holding him, feeling as the familiar parts of his embrace grew distant again. Eventually, Shane pulled away and got up, letting Ryan lie down. Shane sat down on the bench opposite Ryan and took up the oars again, heading towards shore.</p>
<p>When he got closer, he saw movement from inside the hotel room. A giant stepped out – that incredibly tall man that Shane saw at the circus. He walked down the boardwalk and met the rowboat at the shore, a heavy hand guiding it up onto the sand. He looked down at the two men; at the soaking wet sheet that draped translucent over Ryan and at Shane’s unbuttoned shirt and open fly.</p>
<p>“Nothing happened,” Shane said, fixing his pants and partially buttoning his shirt before he climbed out of the boat.</p>
<p>The giant only nodded before he reached down into the boat and picked up Ryan.</p>
<p>“Wait, what are you d-”</p>
<p>“I’ll carry him,” the giant said, his voice softer than Shane expected. “I’ll carry him back for you.”</p>
<p>Shane hesitantly thanked the giant, picked up a trailing corner of Ryan’s sheet off the sand, and led them back into the hotel room and down the hall. Despite Shane understanding more about his situation now, he still didn’t know how to make things any better. Something the Professor said kept coming back to him. “Down is up.” It wasn’t all that original or even particularly helpful, but it was enough to make Shane think that perhaps there was some structure, some rules to this place that he just hadn’t figured out yet.</p>
<p>Shane called the elevator and the doors opened as soon as he hit the button, as if he were the only one in the hotel. Like everyone in the hotel stopped existing as soon as Shane stopped thinking about them. As narcissistic as it sounded, it was probably how things worked here.</p>
<p>Maybe he had more control over things than he thought.</p>
<p>Shane stepped into the elevator and the giant followed him. Long limbs folded into the confined space and Shane plastered himself against the back wall to make room. As the three rode down Shane reached out and brushed a strand of hair off of Ryan’s face.</p>
<p>“I’m not going anywhere,” Shane said to him. “I don’t know how, but I promise I’m going to wake up. Just promise me you’ll be there when I do.”</p>
<p>If Shane looked close enough, he could see Ryan’s eyelids flutter slightly. He smiled and took Ryan’s hand in his, not as cold as it once was.</p>
<p>“I had reasons to wake up,” Shane said. “My family, Watcher, Obi. I had reasons. But I’m going to run back for you, Ry. Just as soon as I figure out which direction, I’m going to run.”</p>
<p>The elevator slowed and the door opened into the lobby. Shane pressed himself against the wall again as the giant contorted and unfolded his limbs to get out. The lobby as empty and Shane was grateful for it. As much as he wanted to thank Steven and apologize for being so abrasive earlier, he didn’t want to do anything but try to figure out which direction to go. He knew this Steven wasn’t real, but that didn’t mean that Shane was entirely comfortable with leaving things the way he did, even though they tried to patch things up as best they could.</p>
<p>Shane led the way and opened the hotel room door for the giant. However, the room wasn’t the ornate camber of blankets it was before. It wasn’t the prison cell Shane had first encountered. Now it was a hospital room. The room had beige walls and a linoleum floor that reflected the too-bright florescent lights. There were large, drawn curtains, uncomfortable-looking chairs, and one clean hospital bed. Obi was sleeping, curled up on a folded thermal blanket in the middle of the mattress. As soon as he heard the door open, he got up to greet Shane.  </p>
<p>The giant ducked into the room and looked between Shane and the bed. “It’s meant for you.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Shane said, picking up Obi and moving the blankets to the foot of the bed. “Please put him down anyways.”</p>
<p>The giant lay Ryan down on the hospital bed and watched as Shane unfolded the blanket and covered him from feet to chest. He reached over to the wires of various machines attached to the wall and began connecting them to Ryan. Electric sensors. A fingertip monitor. An IV drip. By the time the giant was finished there were a dozen or so readouts all projected onto screens around the bed. Shane was still trying to read them all when the giant left, entirely silent.</p>
<p>Shane yawned and turned down the lights as much as he could without turning them off completely. He pulled the chair close to the bedside and sat down, Obi jumping up onto the mattress to curl up at Ryan’s side. Shane smiled at that as he took Ryan’s hand. He remembered how Obi liked lying on Ryan whenever he was over. And even through Ryan was allergic, he rarely complained. He would just sit there, scratching Obi’s ears and talking about whatever movie he watched recently, either not noticing or ignoring the way the dander made him sniffle and his eyes water.</p>
<p>Far too often, Shane noticed, he shoved thoughts out of his head when he was so sure they would hurt him. If Ryan showed him anything, it was that perhaps Shane was only afraid of them because he didn’t think them through entirely. Maybe, if he looked close enough, he could see that there really was nothing to be scared of. And so he allowed himself to watch Obi doze off at Ryan’s side.</p>
<p>He allowed himself to see the three of them as a small family. He allowed himself to want that. To want to wake up to them each morning and know they’ll be there each night. And he kept waning until, eventually, he fell asleep; listening to soft breaths and the electric hum of machines.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. But You Don't Know What It Is</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>And you know something's happening</em>
  <br/>
  <em>But you don't know what it is</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones?</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>Shane knew he was in his hospital room when he woke up, still unable to move. There was still something hard against his mouth and he could barely open his eyes. The room was dark, vague shapes. He closed his eyes again, already feeling the pull of sleep but still fighting to stay awake just a little longer.</p>
<p>There was someone sitting beside him.</p>
<p>Music was playing, slightly tinny from a small speaker.</p>
<p>
  <em>totsuzen no okurimono<br/>amaku kaoru hanataba <br/>hoho o yosete dakishimeru nukumori</em>
</p>
<p>It was soft, lulling, coaxing him to stop fighting and fall back into the world he had started to become familiar with. As precious as Shane knew consciousness was, he still found himself fighting to urge to fall back asleep. It wasn’t until the person beside him cleared his throat that Shane fully remembered why it as so important to stay awake.</p>
<p>He wished Ryan would say something. Or maybe look a little closer. Hearing anything more from him would have been wonderful. Ryan was a man of many sounds. He grunted when getting up and sitting down and stretching, like he was an old man who couldn’t pick something off the floor without shouting. Shane teased him for it. That and the fact that Ryan’s moans don’t sound old as much as they sound like a pornographic audio track. It was something Ryan did as psychological manipulation on the basketball court and it ended up seeping into his everyday life. He would involuntarily make that sound in front of complete strangers and would be humiliated when they stared at him. Shane would fake-scold him for it, which only made Ryan blush harder as more people would turn.</p>
<p>Of all the things he missed about Ryan, Shane didn’t expect to be longing for that.</p>
<p>Shane stopped letting his mind wander as he heard the door open and the sound of a curtain dragging across its runner.</p>
<p>“You’re here early for the night shift.” It was Scott.</p>
<p>“I’m still here from the day shift.”</p>
<p>“What are we listening to?”</p>
<p>“I dunno,” Ryan said. “I was playing some movie soundtracks for him earlier but Spotify’s just sort of doing its own thing now. Has been for a while. I can change it.”</p>
<p>“No, that’s okay.” A rustle as he sat. “Do you have a hotel?”</p>
<p>“I do. I mean… well… I don’t really need to be there all the time. I just called Steven from here a little while ago. He’s been taking care of Obi and holding down Watcher until we get back. Anything I can get done in the hotel I can get done here.”</p>
<p>“Are you sure?”</p>
<p>“Mhmm.”</p>
<p>“Because you know we’ll call you the moment there’s any change.”</p>
<p>“I want to be here.” Ryan sighed and Shane could hear him run a hand down his face, scratching at stubble. “Does this… am I making you guys uncomfortable?”</p>
<p>“No,” Scott answered, definite without being too quick. “I know you two are close. Of course we’re okay with you being here. But we <em>are</em> worried about you. You know, you need time to recover too.”</p>
<p>“I’m recovered.”</p>
<p>“Have you eaten today?”</p>
<p>Ryan sighed, scratching at his stubble again. “Just a breakfast burrito before I got here. That was a while ago, I suppose.”</p>
<p>“I’m going to grab you something from the cafeteria.”</p>
<p>“Scott-”</p>
<p>“I’m not about to make you walk down there. Don’t worry about it, I’ll only be a few minutes. I was gonna grab myself a soda anyways. How does soup sound?”</p>
<p>Ryan paused, probably trying to get Scott to reconsider. But it didn’t take long before Ryan sighed and muttered, “Soup sounds really good.”</p>
<p>“There we go.” A rustling again as he got up. “I’ll be right back.”</p>
<p>“Mhmm.”</p>
<p>The curtain moved. The door opened. Footsteps left the room and Ryan moved his chair a little closer. Shane felt fingertips against the back of his hand.</p>
<p><em>hajimete deatta toki no yō ni </em><br/>kokoro ga furueru <br/>tazunete kureru made matte iru wa</p>
<p>Ryan ran his thumb against Shane’s knuckles and sighed, the two of them alone with the music again. Again, it lulled Shane, who was already exhausted from staying awake and listening for as long as he did. He could feel himself start to fall asleep, a certain weightlessness washing over him as he began to give in. It was comfortable, familiar. And he wouldn’t have to fight to stay awake. He could give in for now. He could fall asleep right there, sinking into a comfortable bed while Ryan watched over him.</p>
<p>Shane’s consciousness went fuzzy and dark around the edges.</p>
<p>“I know you’re there,” Ryan said. “Open your eyes for me, Shane.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>“Totsuzen no okurimono” by Taeko Onuki</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. There Ought to Be A Law Against You Comin' Around:</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Well, you walk into the room</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Like a camel and then you frown</em>
  <br/>
  <em>[...]</em>
  <br/>
  <em>There ought to be a law</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Against you comin' around</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You should be made</em>
  <br/>
  <em>To wear earphones</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>Shane woke up with a start as his arm he had propped himself up on slipped off the armrest. His room still looked like a hospital room, with Ryan tethered to all sorts of machines. Shane sat back in his chair and studied Ryan and Obi. He may not have known how to make the dream end, but he knew that if he wanted anything to change then he needed to leave the hotel.</p>
<p>Obi mewed indignantly as Shane moved him off of Ryan so he could start disconnecting him. To Shane’s surprise, none of the machines sounded alarms or flatlined like they do in the movies. They just fell quiet, reading nothing as their cables fell limp onto the bed. As if they were never meant to be attached to Ryan in the first place.</p>
<p>“I’m taking you with me,” Shane said as he fashioned a sort of sling out of the blankets and bedsheets. “No matter what happens to me, I’m going to make sure you’re there. I don’t know if I’ll be able to wake you up, but I’m willing to drown myself again trying.” He looked at Ryan, body propped against the back of the adjustable hospital bed. “Look, I know I’m not the sort of person you expect to hear this from, but I’m kinda scared right now. I always expected the nihilism to settle in and kind of numb everything, but something’s not clicking; it doesn’t work. And I need you.”</p>
<p>Shane looked to Ryan for some response. He imagined light teasing. He imagined an unfounded confidence. He imagined Ryan taking the opportunity to explain to him what he thinks being a ghost will be like. And it would be a speech completely unfounded; not a lecture as much as it would be a description of the way he felt things should be. And, knowing Ryan, he would sprinkle in some discussion of karma, one of the few things Shane believed in… or rather, wanted to believe in.</p>
<p>That, Shane decided, was what Ryan would do.</p>
<p>But this Ryan stayed still; no longer looking dead as much as he simply looked asleep. Reluctantly, Shane acknowledged that he didn’t need to see Ryan do all that to know that would be his reaction. And with this acceptance, Shane fastened the sling of bedsheets around himself and pulled Ryan onto his back. He fit awkwardly against him, Ryan’s legs wrapped loosely around Shane’s waist and his arms draped over shoulders. His face was nestled partially in Shane’s hair and, if he concentrated, Shane could feel the soft ghost of a breath against the back of his neck.</p>
<p>“Come on, Obi,” Shane said as he tried to straighten up as much as he could. “We’re going home.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t until Shane was with Ryan and Obi, walking out of his room, that he realized that that was exactly where they were headed. Either he wakes up, or he goes so far away from the hotel that the streets start to look familiar and, eventually, he would find home. And they could figure things out from there.</p>
<p>When Shane looked to the lobby he was shocked at how crowded it was. All the people from the buffet and the circus and every other person who was staying that the nearly fully-booked hotel was in the lobby and spilling out down the left hallway and out the door. They talked amongst themselves and turned their backs to Shane when he got too close. As unsettling as it was, Shane was grateful that these people had finally chosen to ignore him.</p>
<p>“Shane!”</p>
<p>Shane raised his head just enough to see over the crowd. Just enough to see Steven waving him over from the front desk. Shane squeezed around the people littering the front lobby, a task easier said than done with his long limbs and Ryan in a sling on his back.</p>
<p>Steven moved to the corner of the check-in desk closest to them. “Are you leaving?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Shane tried to maneuver Ryan away from the crowd as much as he could so he wouldn’t get shoved into. “I guess I wasn’t the only one with that idea.”</p>
<p>“Even so, I don’t blame you.” Steven took out the guest ledger and turned to Shane’s page, still slightly wrinkled from some water droplets that spilled on it so many days ago. “There’s a lot here. Many more rooms to explore. But you shouldn’t stay here forever.”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t want to.” Shane winced as Obi climbed up his pant leg, partially up his shirt, and onto the check-in desk. “I don’t mean any offense when I say this. But this has been a nightmare.”</p>
<p>Steven sighed as his lips curved into a sad smile. “I know.”</p>
<p>“You’re not real either,” Shane said.</p>
<p>“I’m not.”</p>
<p>“So your confession…” Shane trailed off as he tried to find the right words. “Was that because I <em>wanted </em>you to say that or was I picking up on something or…?”</p>
<p>“You know,” Steven said as he closed the gust book, “it’s hard to tell. Just go easy on me when you see me out there, okay?” His attention shifted to Obi and he grinned wide as he picked him up. “In the meantime, I’ll look after little Obi.”</p>
<p>“I was planning on bringing him with me.”</p>
<p>“You have yourself to look after. And Ryan.” Steven pulled Obi close and kissed him on the forehead. “I promise you, no matter where you end up, Obi and I will be waiting.”</p>
<p>Shane carefully braced Ryan’s leg against the side of the desk so he could reach out and scratch Obi behind the ears. Obi stretched into the touch and purred, Shane able to feel the low rumble against his hand.</p>
<p>Shane beamed. “Are you my smart, brave little boy?”</p>
<p>Obi turned and butted his head against Shane’s hand, nuzzling him in such a way that Shane was afraid that he would hurt himself on Shane’s fingers. Shane carefully caught the back of Obi’s head and scratched him again.</p>
<p>“Be on your best behavior for Steven, okay?” Shane said, still watching his cat. “He’s been nothing but thoughtful and patient with me since I got here - since long before I got here.”</p>
<p>Shane didn’t look up to see Steven react to that, but just in the corner of his peripheral he could see him smile.</p>
<p>“And he deserves more credit and more time than what he gets. And he has good ideas for shows that I really should help him advocate for, even if he’s not so sure of them himself. God knows he’s helped me with that more times that I’ll ever know.”</p>
<p>“Shane.”</p>
<p>Shane glanced up to see Steven’s cheeks tinged an obvious blush. He flashed Steven a quick smile before he leaned down and kissed Obi on the exact same spot of the forehead Steven did. When Shane looked back up, Steven’s cheeks and ears were a dark pink.</p>
<p>Shane adjusted the sling and gripped Ryan by the leg again as he stepped back from the check-in desk. “Any hint where to go?”</p>
<p>“I wish I knew.” Steven stood up straight and tried to look over the crowd. “I think you should move fast, though. I mean, this place as a way of calling you back. Besides, we don’t know exactly what’s out there.”</p>
<p>Shane nodded and looked out the front doors. It was drizzling, like it always seemed to around here. A few people stood outside, outlined by the headlights of cars pulling up to the hotel doors. If Shane stood and listened, he could hear people talking about leaving, but hesitating when they got near the door. He also heard familiar cruel voices from the faceless people he could feel watching him.</p>
<p>“Does he know how pathetic he looks?”</p>
<p>“Waste of time.”</p>
<p>“Why bother? It’s not like Ryan will remember this.”</p>
<p>“Didn’t he already tell him that this was only platonic?”</p>
<p>“What about that does he not understand?”</p>
<p>Shane stepped closer to the doors, trying not to disturb the crowd. It wasn’t long before their movement swept him and Ryan away from the check-in desk and across the room to the large glass doors.</p>
<p>“Didn’t even say goodbye.”</p>
<p>“Selfish.”</p>
<p>Someone pushed the doors open and Shane followed them out. Behind him, he heard the last of the mutterers:</p>
<p>“He shouldn’t come back.”</p>
<p>The people outside stood with their heads down, staring at the damp concrete. They didn’t speak and did little more than sway in place, like trees. The car right in front of the doors hummed as it sat still, exhaust steaming from its pipe. The driver stared towards the doors for a moment before he got out, the car still running. He opened the door, but glared at Shane when he tried to take a step towards it. He then tilted his head and looked into the lobby doors. Standing on the other side of them was the singer, still wearing her veil. She stood there, watching him, making no move to reach for the door handle or step away. The two of them simply stared at each other in silence, each clearly waiting for the other. And Shane watched them.</p>
<p>Beside him on the sidewalk there was a woman who as very entranced with the ground and oil swirling in a puddle under the car. “She never leaves,” she said, so softly that Shane could barely hear her. “And he never goes in.”</p>
<p>Shane stepped closer to her and whispered back, “How often does this happen?”</p>
<p>She shrugged. “Always?” she guessed. “Often?” she guessed again.</p>
<p>Shane looked back to the two, their expressionless faces reflecting over each other in the window. They didn’t seem to be strangers and their relationship didn’t seem to be one of animosity. Instead, they looked at each other as if they were uncertain what to do and were unsure who should do it.</p>
<p>“They stand,” the woman beside Shane said, “they watch. Then she goes back to her room and he drives off. It’s hard to tell who moves first.”</p>
<p>Shane furrowed his brow as he watched them, standing perfectly still.</p>
<p>“At least,” the woman said, “she doesn’t have to wait for someone to come.”</p>
<p>And Shane’s eyes shifted to the wide-open passenger door.</p>
<p>It started as a sudden, conspicuous kind of movement that usually is enough for most people. Like staring at a policeman’s holstered gun and moving your fingers just slightly as you stand behind him. Thinking, “I could just take it if I wanted.” And you could just take it, but you don’t want to, so you stop immediately. Only someone quite observant and paying very close attention could tell what dangerous thought flittered though your mind before you abandoned it. And they are often too polite to mention seeing anything.</p>
<p>But, this time, the motion kept going. It could be called involuntary if Shane wasn’t very acutely aware of what he was doing. No thought went into it, just movement; as if he were falling into actions. He wasn’t sure if he meant to put Ryan in the passenger seat, but it’s what he wanted. He wasn’t sure if he meant to shut the door, even as the driver turned around and stared at him. His mind was blank as he walked around the car, got behind the wheel, and locked the doors. This wasn’t the sort of thing that he did, but yet he did it. He looked through the passenger’s window and back at the hotel. At the people realizing what he was doing. At the driver who, furious, reached for the door handle and pounded his fist against the windows. At Ryan. At Ryan, who blinked his eyes open and looked out the front windshield at a single raindrop slowly trailing its way down. At Ryan, who smiled.</p>
<p>Shane shifted the car into drive and pulled away from the hotel. From the shouting driver. From the woman, who finally looked up. From the singer, who opened the door and stepped out to watch Shane speed away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The two traveled in silence, listening to little more than the rhythmic thump of windshield wipers and the drone of the engine. The roads were straight, for the most part, with slow, long turns that curved with the hills hidden under pine trees. Through the trees in the rearview mirror, Shane could see the occasional flash of red, white, and blue lights. He could hear the occasional siren.</p>
<p>Despite Ryan’s apparent lucidity when they left the hotel, he didn’t seem to be all that aware anymore. At least he stopped looking like a corpse. Instead, he just looked incredibly sleepy – like it was a struggle to keep his eyes open. As badly as Shane wanted to speak with him, Shane let Ryan sleep and found himself smiling when he heard Ryan softly snore.</p>
<p>Shane caught another flash of lights through the trees behind him and he turned off his lights. He slowed slightly as he squinted into the shadows of the dark forest road. Usually, in dreams, when he wanders far enough away, things begin to look familiar. Off of strange roads he would see parks and airports he had dreamed of in the past, a vague map of an imagined landscape orienting itself in his head. Things went like this before – only growing darker and more unfamiliar the longer he traveled. The road beneath the tires turned from smooth asphalt to gravel, rumbling and kicking small pebbles against the underside of the car.</p>
<p>Shane reached down and took Ryan’s hand in his. Ryan’s grip was brief and weak, but still more substantial than what Shane was used to here.</p>
<p>“I don’t think I’ve ever tried harder to wake up in my life,” Shane said, eyes still on the road. “It feels close. Like I could if only I remembered how.” He glanced over at Ryan and nervously tapped his fingers against the wheel, as if Ryan could actually hear what he was going to say. “You know what I do remember? Suddenly being awake. Suddenly being awake next to you. I would blink my eyes open, not sure how I was conscious and you would be tapping my shoulder or talking to yourself. You would ask me to listen to an old house settle or something. Then I would fall asleep and you would wake me up again ten minutes later. I used to convince myself that I didn’t know why I never got upset with you for that. But I knew. I loved being the one you turned to.” He laughed to himself. “You remember when we went to the Lizzie Borden house? I woke up to you filming me. My first thought was, ‘so this is what dating Ryan would be like.’ I don’t even know why I thought that. It just seemed to fit, I guess. I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have at the time. But I thought of it enough.”</p>
<p>The gravel under the tires slowly transitioned to mud and Shane knew that he couldn’t keep driving forever.</p>
<p>“Let’s try something else,” he said, more for his own benefit than for Ryan’s as he turned off the road and onto the grassy apron. He killed the engine and unlocked the doors, not even checking to see if they were still being followed. There was no doubt in his mind that they were.</p>
<p>Shane picked Ryan up again, maneuvering him into the sling again as Ryan lazily put his arms around Shane’s shoulders. He breathed, soft and unsteady against the nape of Shane’s neck and Shane could feel his face sting with an obvious flush. As he carried Ryan into the forest, he remembered the times being near Ryan or even just seeing him was enough to make him blush on camera. He remembered looking away or just even quickly laughing so nobody could tell why or even if his cheeks were pink. Even when he wasn’t on camera he tried to hide it. He wondered if, maybe, he wasn’t as good at hiding it as he thought he was.</p>
<p>The forest was dense. Thick underbrush got underfoot and blocked paths. Several times, Shane tripped on branches and roots, making him fall hard to his knees. It felt real. In dreams, Shane noticed, he often had a superhuman quality about him where he never got hurt. But, perhaps because he was reshaping what dreams were to him or perhaps because he was drifting further away from consciousness, it began to feel real. As long as he could remember, he could never remember a dream here he was so cold and wet, with a sore back and mud digging under his nails. It’s not as if he never dreamed about those concepts; but he never felt them before. Not like this.</p>
<p>“I’m in a hospital bed,” Shane muttered to himself as he adjusted his grip on Ryan. “I am safe. I am watched over by doctors and nurses and my family. And you.” Shane lightly nuzzled his cheek against Ryan’s arm. “I’ll wake up. I can wake up.”</p>
<p>He heard dogs barking in the distance behind him. The flicker of flashlights through the trees.</p>
<p>“I can wake up.”</p>
<p>Shane murmured that phrase over and over, trying to remind himself. But it wasn’t long before it fell into a simple unending rhythm with no meaning aside from a reminder to breathe. In in. Out out. In in. Out out. The words were bellows with neither promise nor significance.</p>
<p>His feet were cold and his socks soaked through after stepping through puddles and mud. The sound of dogs and shouting men were closer and Shane did not know what would happen if they reached him. After all these years, he should have known that things would come back to his childhood nightmare: being chased by dogs. He remembered being a kid and seeing the Labrador down the street throw itself against its chain link fence, barking as if the sound alone could tear down the barrier. The hunched Boxer that stood in the road as Shane walked to his car from the beach some summer in Wisconsin, growling. The Dalmatian that pulled at the length of its chain, snapping at Shane when he took his morning run in Los Angeles. The nights he lay awake hearing their barks and howls compounded until they were nothing but teeth and black gums.</p>
<p>And Shane did not want to know what would happen if they reached him.</p>
<p>The dogs were closer still by the time Shane reached the wide river that ran through the forest. On the shore and under a tree, covered in reeds and dead leaves, was a fishing boat – long abandoned. Still, Shane stepped into it and gently lowered Ryan into the boat. He took a long stick from the ground and shoved the boat into the water, climbing in before it could get taken away by the slow but continuous current. Taking the stick, he shoved them away from the shore just as the glowing eyes of dogs at night were visible through the underbrush. The river swept him away, downstream on an old, unsteady boat.</p>
<p>The motor didn’t work. The oars were missing. The wood was starting to rot. The more Shane looked at the boat, the more he realized how unlikely it was that it could stay afloat. This too was where his dreams usually began to crumble away from under him. Logic fractured dreamsense, until the very foundations of a dream’s reality rotted away like the benches on this fisherman’s boat. As badly as he needed the dream to end, he was terrified of what would happen if only the boat fell away and he was, once again, with lungs full of water. Don’t look at it, he decided as he turned his attention to Ryan.</p>
<p>Ryan looked like he did the few times Shane saw him blackout drunk, which is to say: barely conscious and hardly lucid. He was slumped against the bow of the boat and looking up at Shane, who had been dividing his attention between the unresponsive motor and the occasionally too-near shore. Shane sighed and sat down at Ryan’s feet, finally willing to relax as he heard the dogs fade into the distance.</p>
<p>“As afraid as I am of ending this in water,” Shane said. “If you weren’t conscious right now, I would be doing everything I could to tip this fucker over. I would have needed to see you looking at me that badly.”</p>
<p>Ryan smiled, small and lopsided, and shrugged. “I’m not sure how much more I can do for you. Especially since you know I’m not him.”</p>
<p>“You’re awfully close sometimes.”</p>
<p>“Maybe in other dreams.” Ryan arched his back and grunted as he sat up and moved so he was next to Shane, their backs against the side of the boat. “I haven’t given you much here.”</p>
<p>Shane put an arm around him. “I still appreciate it.”</p>
<p>Ryan leaned into the half-embrace. “He’s had dreams about you too. Dreams he hasn’t told you about.”</p>
<p>Shane scoffed.</p>
<p>“Dreams about the two of you dancing. His dreams are all cinema and if you look at yourself and look at old Hollywood you would know you were built to dance. And he would never let you dance alone. He might say you two were Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, but it was closer to Fred and Ginger. Who’s to say who pulled whom close or who held onto whose waist as you guided each other onto chairs and over tables. The two of you, a stage, an unseen orchestra. A pair meant to move together and express something that neither entirely understands as you’re swept away in the motion and music. Perfectly natural. Perfectly coordinated. Designed to be projected in black and white in Grauman's Chinese Theatre.” He looked up at Shane. “Because that’s how he sees you: someone meant to be immortalized in celluloid and for the world to honor as a giant.”</p>
<p>“A giant,” Shane echoed as he looked down at his long legs folded into the boat.</p>
<p>“Like Valentino. Like Clark Gable.”</p>
<p>“Wishful thinking.”</p>
<p>“Have you already forgotten the way he looks at you? How he talks about you?” Ryan smiled. “How he kissed you?”</p>
<p>Shane’s cheeks turned pink again. “That didn’t mean what you think it meant.”</p>
<p>“Oh, of course,” Ryan said, his words slightly mumbled as he closed his eyes again and rested his head on Shane’s shoulder. “It was more like the kiss two army buddies share when they lie dying in the trenches. Or maybe it was similar to a kiss exchanged by two mafia bosses before the final bloodshed. Or perhaps it was the sort of kiss meant for someone already dead, something done in memorial instead of compassion.” He reached up and entwined his fingers with Shane’s. “Or has he grown away from that? Do you think that he would find that kind of affection only acceptable if it were bookended by incredible violence and pain? Or is it allowed to finally be more than that?”</p>
<p>“We can’t know, Ryan.”</p>
<p>“Not unless you wake up and ask him.”</p>
<p>“And he feels like answering.” Shane turned his head so his lips were against Ryan’s hair. “You can’t be too certain about these things.”</p>
<p>“And if you’re not willing to find out and risk getting your heart broken then you won’t be able to look at him without wondering ‘what if?’” His grip on Shane’s fingers loosened. “There’s a whole world out there. You have your projects, your company, your family, friends, your cat. And yet when push came to shove and you were faced with your own mortality, you spent your time worrying about the two of us. He doesn’t want to torment you like this, Shane. He would think you deserve to know.”</p>
<p>Shane sighed, slow and deep.</p>
<p>“He’ll be gentle. He knows that your friendship is something worth fighting for. Because, romantic or not, he does love you.” Ryan let go of Shane’s hand and dug into the folds of the sheet wrapped around him. “I took these when you left to speak to Steven. Here.” Ryan pulled his hand out from the sheets and opened his palm, revealing two green jellybeans. “Maybe they can help you wake up.”</p>
<p>Shane took the jellybeans and stared down at them, small in the valleys of his palm. “I suppose.”</p>
<p>Ryan nodded.</p>
<p>“I suppose I better find out what it is I’ve been running to,” Shane said, slowly rolling them over with his thumb. “Now that we’ve nailed what I’m running from.” He looked down at Ryan again. “Is it strange? You having to comfort me instead of the other way around?”</p>
<p>“I guess we’ll find out.”</p>
<p>“I guess so.” Shane took the two jellybeans into his mouth and chewed quickly, not sure what would happen. Pear and green apple. He let them turn gritty against his tongue as he lingered on their taste and watched the deep shadows of the trees as the boat continued down the river. Shane closed his eyes and rested his head against Ryan’s. “Do I try to sleep? That’s how I almost got up last time.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think that will do it.”</p>
<p>“Of course not.”</p>
<p>Shane lay in the boat, quietly watching the sky as Ryan dozed off against his shoulder. He kept watching the trees as they passed, no longer able to hear dogs or voices or anything but the water and the gentle sigh of Ryan’s breaths. Before - when he was in the hotel or when he was in the library or walking through the circus - it would have been easier, he thought, to accept it all as a dream. A hallucination. But there was something about the forest in that moment that made it feel like it could have been something more. Perhaps it was the breeze against his face. Or the scent of river water, damp earth, wood, and Ryan. The weight of him against Shane’s arm. The hard pressure of the boat’s frame against Shane’s back. </p>
<p>Shane closed his eyes and slowly opened his mouth and visualized the ventilator he knew he was connected to. He thought of how it pressed against his tongue and nestled down his throat. How it forced his breath - easy and constant but not entirely Shane’s own anymore. He squeezed his eyes shut and listened, letting himself believe that he heard the hum of machines and the buzz of florescent lighting. He Rook Ryan’s hand in his again and focused on the sensation. He wasn’t sure how much of the waking world was actually there, but he hoped that those touches were. He thought of all the times Ryan had pulled away from the smallest physical contact; how he used to announce to anyone within earshot that he didn’t mean to touch Shane; how he would make a show of wiping off his hands after one of their séances. There were touches between then and now. Embraces and shoulder touches and leaning against each other. But this touch was different. It was private and gentle and purposeful.</p>
<p>Shane felt a thumb rub against the side of his hand and opened his eyes to see the dream version of Ryan lay perfectly still. And yet Shane still felt the caress, slow and warm.</p>
<p>“Ryan?” Shane whispered.</p>
<p>“Everyone wants me to go.” It was Ryan’s voice, but the Ryan in front of Shane did not speak. “Nobody’s said anything yet, but I can tell. My family. Your family. Steven. Watcher’s lawyer. I think the doctor wants me out too.”</p>
<p>“I need you here,” Shane said, although he wasn’t entirely sure how to speak to Ryan like this.</p>
<p>“I’m not going to leave you. You matter more to me than their opinion.”</p>
<p>Shane smiled and tightened his grip on Ryan’s hand. Ryan didn’t respond.</p>
<p>“I wish I could do more. But then, we all feel that way. I suppose I’m still here because I wanna prove that the whole ‘ride or die’ thing isn’t just talk. I need you to know. I need everyone to know, I guess.”</p>
<p>Shane’s pulse quickened and he closed his eyes, leaning against his dream of Ryan with their hands still joined.</p>
<p>“When I’m not here, I’m at the hotel. I remember to shower, but I sometimes forget to eat. I lie down, but I haven’t gotten much sleep. I don’t know what this means to you when it’s coming from me – probably not much - but I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>“It still means a lot.”</p>
<p>“I’ve been praying,” Ryan continued. “I know you don’t believe so that may not mean all that… anyways… I need it. I pray for you, of course, but mostly I pray for guidance. I’m not used to that. I’m used to health -everyone prays for health- and protection. But not this. And I’m listening and waiting but I haven’t found any answer yet.” He sighed and when he spoke again his voice seemed fainter. “I’m trying to hold on, but ‘do not be afraid’ can only take me so far. I don’t want… I can’t just leave this to fate, like I’m supposed to. But I don’t know what else there is now…”</p>
<p>Shane sat up and looked around as the voice seemed to lift away from the dream vision of Ryan and down over the water. Shane took the long stick he had used to push off the shore and steered the boat as best as he could, following the sound as it drifted away from him. When he came to a bend in the river the voice kept travelling straight and went into the woods. Shane pushed the stick deep into the muck of the water as he pushed the boat onto the shore. As the boat lurched on the sand, Ryan grunted and his eyes fluttered open.</p>
<p>“I think we’re close,” Shane said as he picked up Ryan again. “He’s talking. I know it’s him.”</p>
<p>Ryan hummed in acceptance as he clung to Shane. Shane stepped over rocks and tall grass, listening for Ryan as the sounds of the river fell quiet behind him.</p>
<p>“I wish there were someone I could talk to about this,” Ryan’s voice continued, broken only slightly in the rustle of the trees. “Well, I finally was able to get an appointment with my therapist tomorrow, but that’s not what I mean. I mean… if this were happening to anyone else, I would have turned to you.”</p>
<p>Shane kept moving, keeping a brisk pace behind this moving point in space that Ryan’s voice came from. It drifted away, but not too quickly. It floated, but not too high. It was leading him, but fast enough for Shane to think that if he fell behind it wouldn’t wait for him. And there were moments where he moved through the trees so easily that he wondered if he was still carrying Ryan at all. He tried not to think of the weightlessness he felt when he stopped paying attention. He tried not to worry when he realized that Ryan takes far too long between breaths.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to be reminded of Orpheus.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to be afraid to look back.</p>
<p>The forest gave way to a grassy plateau without much warning and the long, bent blades of grass gave way to a cliff with no preamble. Shane froze at the tree line, eyes wide as Ryan’s voice drifted away and up over that unexpected nothingness. He carefully approached the sudden drop, craning his neck to see what was below them. The wind pulled at his clothes and hair and Shane lowered himself to his knees as he moved just a little closer. He just wanted to see.</p>
<p>At the bottom of the cliff an ocean’s waves collide with rocks, casting up a white spray and mist. The water was dark and beneath the waves he could see two points of light. Headlights.</p>
<p>There was no cliff in his accident. However, if he didn’t wake up soon, it might as well have been a cliff. They would have been equally final. </p>
<p>Then he remembered. He remembered the water around them holding the doors and windows shut as water filled the car, too slowly and yet far too fast. It was a horrible sensation, having to wait to drown. The seat belt cutting tight across his chest didn’t help. He remembered Ryan swinging hard at the window over and over while all Shane could bring himself to do was fumble with a seat belt that he had struggled with since they left the rental lot. When the window broke, the water Shane was waiting for came all at once. He gasped, breath tight as he tried to breathe around a sob, and the water swallowed him. As the last pocket of air lifted away from him, Shane pressed on the seat belt’s latch and pulled. And nothing happened. He kept trying, hands moving automatically as he stared vacantly into the water around him. He was pinned – too slender to squeeze himself out of the shoulder strap and too tall to fold himself out of the belt holing his lap down.</p>
<p>The seat belt did release, but by the time that happened Shane’s lungs were already burning and his throat spasmed wildly. The car was already entirely filled. As he lifted away from his seat he was shaking so hard he could barely move as he reached weakly towards the broken window. He remembered realizing for the first time that Ryan wasn’t beside him. He remembered parting his lips just slightly and water forcing its way down his throat. He choked and his eyes widened in horror as more water pressed into him. His mind was so clouded that he couldn’t focus on anything around him and although his eyes were wide open everything faded to a dark blur. He couldn’t see the hand that reached into the car and grabbed him by the wrist. Everything faded in and out as Shane felt himself get pulled from the car, until being unconscious felt more natural than being awake. But in the brief flashes of consciousness, Shane could remember Ryan tearing at the buttons on his heavy coat with shaking hands. “He’s fading too,” Shane remembered thinking. Every other thought until that moment had been a loud panic at everything. But this was lucidity.</p>
<p>He shrugged the coat off as best he could, Ryan working faster and rougher. Again, the world blurred around Shane until he couldn’t even see the man dragging him towards the surface. His consciousness slipped and when Shane opened his eyes again he was on the shore. Ryan was clinging to him and murmuring in a hushed, panicked tone and Shane still couldn’t breathe. Shane wanted to reach for him, but he couldn’t. He wanted to comfort him, but he already felt disconnected from his body. He thought he somehow managed to say, “It’s okay,” but Ryan was already looking away and shouting for help.</p>
<p>Maybe he didn’t say anything.</p>
<p>Nobody would have been able to hear him.</p>
<p>The memory rushed back to him as he knelt on the clifftop, looking down at the submerged car. He thought of his imagined Ryan, still clinging to his back and resting with his face against Shane’s neck.</p>
<p>Shane didn’t turn his head as he reached over his shoulder to touch the side of Ryan’s face. “Why didn’t you tell me that he saved my life?”</p>
<p>“Because,” Ryan said, his voice little more than a sigh, “that’s what he’s doing right now.”</p>
<p>Shane carefully let go of Ryan, setting him down in the tall grass. He hesitated before looking at him, as if it would violate some ancient ritual. But nothing happened when their eyes met. Ryan only smiled, gentle and tired. Shane smiled back and leaned down, kissing him on the cheek. Ryan kissed him back and Shane thought about that for a few seconds before saying, “Even if this is it and there’s nothing beyond, I’ll find some way to miss you after I’m gone.”</p>
<p>The dreamed variation of Ryan reached up and lightly touched Shane’s cheek. “I wish you could let yourself actually see the way he looks at you. That you would let yourself believe that it’s really what you’re seeing.” He settled back down into the long grass. “He’ll miss you too.”</p>
<p>Shane carefully stood, all too aware of how close he was to the edge of the cliff as heavy gusts of wind made his clothes rustle against his skin and his hair blow into his face. He shivered and looked out towards the horizon, still faintly able to hear Ryan’s voice speak from some point far above the water.</p>
<p>“I was never good at figuring out how to fly,” Shane said, shuffling a few inches closer to the edge. “Maybe I’m just too in my head about it.”</p>
<p>He looked down again. The headlights were still there, far beneath the surface and glowing a strange green color tinted by the ocean. Shane grasped at his own wrist as he stared at the light, remembering the sensation of Ryan pulling him out of the sunken car. It was clumsy and painfully tight. His fingers were calloused and his short nails pressed sharp into skin. It was a rough, helpless pull. And as Shane stood at the top of the cliff and carefully released his own wrist, he felt Ryan’s hand against him again. Warm and heavy.</p>
<p>As if it could still pull him.</p>
<p>“He’s still down there,” Shane said. The revelation was a surprise to him and he looked back at Ryan, who still lay on his back, staring up at the cloudy sky. “Ryan, he’s still in the car, isn’t he? Not physically but… oh God, he’s still down there.”</p>
<p>Ryan didn’t respond. Instead, he kept looking at the clouds, blinking slowly as if he were about to be taken by sleep again. And Shane wanted to reach for him and hold him like he had been wanting to. But he stopped. He stopped and felt the weight on his wrist. And he looked back over the cliff.</p>
<p>There were reasons to jump, Shane decided as he stepped off the ledge. Everything came back to the accident. It came back to every intention exchanged in the brush of hands. It came back to those moments where he was ready to die and how that made Ryan more important to Shane than air.</p>
<p>Or perhaps he heard the dogs in the forest again.</p>
<p>Or perhaps he hoped he would fly.</p>
<p>Or it could be that seeing those two points of light at the bottom of the ocean reminded Shane of himself and Ryan. There were moments when they both were in that car. There was an instance when they sat side by side, surrounded by water.</p>
<p>Or this was how it ended.</p>
<p>He closed his eyes. And as he fell he screwed his eyes shut tighter and tighter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Until he shut them so completely that the only thing left for them to do was open.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Do You, Mr. Jones?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>'Cause something is happening</em>
  <br/>
  <em>And you don't know what it is</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Do you, Mister Jones? </em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>The first thing Shane was aware of was the sensation of sweat, which was something that never really registered with him the previous times he came close to waking up. His back was warm and it felt like a thin film of perspiration and oil coated his body. His feet were uncomfortably hot and felt restrained in heavy socks. And then there was the draping weight of wires and tubes lying across him. Some on his face, some on his neck, some on his chest. Like they were trying to bury him under readings and plastic.</p>
<p>The smell came next. The scent of a saline solution lingered in his nose and at the back of his throat. It was in him, making up spit and sweat and tears. He couldn’t escape the taste of it and it repulsed him. Another breath and he could smell hand sanitizer and that unidentifiable sterile meat scent that wafts from school cafeterias and the kitchens of nursing homes. That was distant. Something faint down the halls.</p>
<p>Then he heard Scott. “You remember Joe, right?”</p>
<p>And Ryan. “Yeah, we went to Disneyland.”</p>
<p>“He offered to substitute for The Professor if Shane has a hard time speaking for extended periods of time. Which I guess is a thing with ARDS; he said he has an uncle who is recovering from it after a bout of pneumonia.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting about that part.”</p>
<p>“Well, he knows Patrick and he said that he would even be willing to do the songs. He just messaged me: ‘I promise I’ll actually act for this one, unlike the Morris Ashley bit. Also I’ll make my own puppet.’”</p>
<p>Ryan chuckled. “That’s sweet, but I think Steven and I can pick up the slack. I mean, maybe if the research was already done and we were scheduling a shoot then I’d run it by Shane. But right now we’re good. It’s good of him to offer, though. I’ll talk to Shane about bringing him on as a guest.”</p>
<p>Scott paused. “I messaged him ‘we’ll see.’” Shane could hear a chair shift and settle. “You keep talking about him like he’s only sleeping.”</p>
<p>“I know it’s serious. I know. If it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stop. I get that. I just thou-”</p>
<p>“-No, I appreciate it,” Scott said. “Don’t stop. It’s hard for me to sit here day after day when I expect the worst. That… really makes me sound like a piece of shit. But he knows I love him, he knows I’m worried. Sometimes this can feel like… I dunno… like it’s symbolic more than anything. I mean, I know that me physically being right here does very little. And, as much as I want to be here for him, it can feel futile. You know what I mean?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I get it.”</p>
<p>The chair shifted again. “Be right back.”</p>
<p>Ryan hummed in affirmation and Shane could hear Scott’s footsteps travel around the bed. A door closed. There was another shift of a chair and a hand rested against Shane’s wrist. At first it was just fingertips, a light touch with a subtle scrape of mild callouses. Then the fingertips curved down the side of his wrist and Ryan’s palm settled against him in a gentle grip. It was warm and soft and strong. The same hand that pulled Shane out of that car.</p>
<p>Shane opened his eyes for the first time and squinted up at the lights. Although only a few of the room’s lights were on, it still hurt to look up into it after days of darkness. And so his eyes were barely open when he looked over and saw Ryan. He looked exhausted, the circles under his eyes darker than usual and a sort of glazed, tired vacancy lingered in them. His clothes were rumpled and his stubble resembled more of a beard. He wasn’t the same man Shane had seen in his dreams. He even looked different from the other times he partially woke up. Like a part of him had eroded away.</p>
<p>Shane tried to speak, but nothing came. There was still something in his mouth and down his throat. It was a familiar hard plastic that still uncomfortably pressed his lip against his teeth. He didn’t even make a muted sound.</p>
<p>He wanted to move his hand, but he couldn’t. There wasn’t some force dragging him back to sleep like there was before. Instead, he just couldn’t move. Or perhaps he forgot how. He wanted to take Ryan’s hand in his, but his body couldn’t respond. Perhaps that was too complicated. He wanted to press his hand into Ryan’s palm. He couldn’t do that either. Nor could he flex his fingers or make a fist or press his hand flat against the mattress. In the end, Shane focused on just moving one finger. Just one. Just enough for Ryan to see it and know that he was there, that he was alive, that he wanted to come back. He needed to come back.</p>
<p>Just once, so Ryan would know that Shane hadn’t abandoned him.</p>
<p>What followed that thought was an unnatural spasm that Shane could only rationalize as all the commands reaching his hand at once, making his hand arch clawlike to frantically scratch at the bedsheet under it. The sudden sound and movement startled Shane and made Ryan make a familiar, frightened gasp and jump slightly, letting go of him. Ryan looked up at Shane with wide eyes that were no longer as tired as they were a few seconds ago. Shane blinked at him, trying to get a better look despite the bright light and his overall poor vision. Ryan stared back, his breaths coming short as he seemed to realize what he was seeing.</p>
<p>Ryan reached to the control panel built into the bed and pressed the large blue button that read “nurse.” “Scott?” he said, as if speaking to the quiet of the room in general and not talking to anyone in particular. “Scott.” A little louder that time before he registered what he needed to do. “Scott! Scott!”</p>
<p>Shane heard a nearby sink and a door opened. He looked over and saw his brother, a tall blur on the other side of the room but yet looking confused, relieved, and anxious all at once. He rushed over and hit a button on the wall that Shane couldn’t read but was sure also read “nurse.” Shane wanted to smile up at his brother but couldn’t with the hard plastic holding down his lip. He reached up to move it aside and Scott quickly caught him by the wrist.</p>
<p>“No no,” he said. “That stays there. Just keep breathing, we’ll sort this out.” He looked around and hit the “nurse” button a few more times. “You’re okay now. You’re going to be okay, we’ll see you through it. I know you’re – the thing in your mouth is supposed to be there. Stay calm. Just stay calm.”</p>
<p>Shane lay still as he watched his brother talk, his usually measured tone growing frantic as he kept hitting the button.</p>
<p>“I know it’s past midnight but where the hell are they?”</p>
<p>Ryan straightened up. “I’ll go find someone.”</p>
<p>“No. I will. I’m faster anyways.” He looked back down at Shane and squeezed his hand. “I’ll be right back, I promise. Stay with us.”</p>
<p>Shane watched as Scott turned and rushed out of the room and down the hall. And Shane and Ryan were alone. Despite his discomfort, Shane didn’t move to adjust the tube of the ventilator again. But he did sit up as much as he could and moved his legs, if only to make sure he was still able to.</p>
<p>Ryan looked to the small table next to the bed and picked up Shane’s glasses. Shane put them on and the hospital finally came into focus. So did Ryan, who looked even more disheveled than Shane had originally thought. He had never seen him so tired, so frayed. Even his honey brown skin looked somewhat ashen after what must have been days of anxious waiting and long nights running from nightmares. His eyes were glassy and he turned away briefly to rub at them.</p>
<p>Shane reached for Ryan, Ryan catching his hand partway and holding on. Their hands fell to the mattress together, their grip gentle and constant despite the slight tremors that shook Ryan’s fingertips.</p>
<p>“Shane?” Ryan said, smiling when Shane looked up at him. “You remember us, right? You remember Scott? And you… do you still remember me?”</p>
<p>If he could speak, he would have said that at times it felt like Ryan was all he could remember. If he wasn’t tethered down with tubes and wires, he would have dragged Ryan close and held him the way he had been wanting to since long before Watcher. If his mouth were free, he would have kissed unwashed hair and stubbled cheeks; ignoring how stale their bodies felt so they could share a quick moment of incredible relief. And joy. And love.</p>
<p>But Shane couldn’t do any of that, despite how much he wanted to. And so he tried to express everything in a long, singular grip. As he held on tight he looked into Ryan’s eyes until he was sure he saw something shift. Until he was sure that he had somehow said all he had meant to say. And, all at once, any fear and anxiety fell away from Ryan – rolling off him like rain.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Sometimes Your Life Don't Go Exactly How You Planned</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You’ve got a love inside your heart</em><br/>
<em>It’s burning like a frying pan</em><br/>
<em>So you keep existing if you can</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Shane wasn’t sure if he would ever get used to dragging around an oxygen tank. Thankfully, the doctor said that he probably would only need to use it for a few weeks. However, that didn’t make it any more pleasant to drag around and it certainly wasn’t pleasant to have the NC tube pressed up against his nostrils and around his ears all the time. However, after walking the length of the hotel to get to his and Ryan’s room, Shane was thankful for it. It wasn’t that long of a walk, but Shane more often than not found himself winded easily. And so he braced himself against the wall and breathed deep, pulling his suitcase close as he tried to compose himself.</p><p>After being released five hours ago, Shane’s parents took him back to their hotel so he could take a shower and pick up his suitcase. It was salvaged from the wreck, as was Ryan’s, but everything in them except for their clothes was destroyed. Things went slow, Shane not having much of a choice other than to let his parents and even Scott dote on him while he dried off in the hotel room. It was pretty much what they had been doing for the past two days when Shane was conscious and recovering in the hospital, but they all told him that it was different now that he was released. Their attention didn’t wane during dinner either, when the four of them ate slowly at some restaurant downtown that Shane thought was too nice for him to wheel the oxygen tank into. Although at times it annoyed or embarrassed him, he really didn’t mind being the target of their (at-times smothering) affection. Between Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and having a vivid memory of the crash and almost drowning, Shane was significantly more morose than usual. This, of course, was something that worried everyone who knew him and led to Shane being at the receiving end of a barrage of compliments, adoration, and presents.  </p><p>The four of them had the traditional Midwestern goodbye, which lasted about 45 minutes and ended approximately six times. A <em>Return of the King </em>of farewells. Because they all sat down with Shane in the hotel lobby at one point, it theoretically could have gone on for a few hours. However, Shane eventually told them point-blank that he was extremely tired and the doctor said to him that he needed his rest.</p><p>And that was how he ended up there, standing beside Ryan’s door, catching his breath and leaning on the wall.</p><p>Ever since he woke up Ryan had been nothing but kind and encouraging, able to pivot between best friend and business partner in the blink of an eye. He was the one who cancelled the final location for <em>Weird Wonderful </em>and the one who dealt with insurance and getting their luggage out of the wrecked car and booking transportation back to L.A. Perhaps Shane could fly with the oxygen canister, but he didn’t want to risk getting held back at the airport. And Ryan was far too anxious behind the wheel now to be able to drive all the way back home.</p><p>He also couldn’t drive with his leg in a cast.</p><p>Shane didn’t see it until the doctors shooed Ryan out of the room a few minutes after Shane came out of his coma, but Ryan’s right leg was wrapped in a cast. According to Ryan, he wasn’t even sure when the break happened, but presumably it was when the car hit the water. He didn’t even notice until he tried to stand up when the ambulance came. At least, that’s what Ryan told Shane and Shane was more than willing to believe him. Ryan has had moments where he was so overwhelmed by anxiety and fear that part of him blacks out and he is propelled forward by a sheer will to survive. There was no reason why this would have been any different.</p><p>They didn’t talk about what Shane was so determined to talk with him about. First, Shane couldn’t talk. Then they were never alone together. Then either one or both of them were too tired for a conversation like that. Then Shane was discharged and had to go with his family for a while. And now he was here: two and a half days later and with the one thing that dragged him back to life still unresolved. He hadn’t even dreamed about it since that first time; his sleep restless and brief when it managed to come at all.</p><p>“I miss sedatives,” Shane mumbled to himself as he wondered if he was ready to knock. How heavy was he breathing? How did he look? Did he look too eager to get back into a life of hotels and travel with Ryan?</p><p>Whatever the answer, Shane didn’t get any more time to wonder as the door opened. Ryan held onto the door as he leaned out into the hallway and smiled up at Shane.</p><p>“I thought I heard you coming,” Ryan said.</p><p>“Just catching my breath.”</p><p>Ryan nodded glancing down to the oxygen tank and the suitcase before he looked back up at Shane. “Wanna come in, big guy?”</p><p>Shane nodded and Ryan stepped aside, reveling a crutch tucked under his arm. He moved quickly with it and led Shane into the room, plopping down on the bed nearest the window. While he initially thought it strange considering that usually Ryan took the bed closest to the door, after a few steps Shane realized that this was a curtesy. He leaned the suitcase against the wall and sat down, keeping his oxygen tank close.</p><p>Ryan looked down into his lap and then back to Shane. “Are they okay with leaving you to me?” he asked, nodding his head at the door.</p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” Shane said. “You know, they were all really impressed with how quickly you were able to coordinate what you did. They really appreciate you being able to keep them up to date with my condition when they were waiting on their flight from Chicago.”</p><p>Ryan shrugged. “They’re hard to read sometimes. They’re like you in that way, I suppose. Or, rather, you’re like them.”</p><p>“They know you saved my life, Ry. That’s all that matters. In fact, they were telling me that if you want to spend your Fourth of July on Navy Pier they’d be more than happy to host and show you around. It’s about time we filmed another <em>Tourist Trapped</em>, don’t you think?”</p><p>Ryan smiled and tilted his head as he turned his attention to the soft foam cushion of his crutches. “The fans have been asking for it.” He cleared his throat and changed the topic. “You know, the train ride is going to be about seven hours. If you want to download anything to read during the ride you should probably do it now.”</p><p>Shane pulled out his new phone and thumbed his way through his apps. “I’ll grab something. But seven hours doesn’t feel all that long after what we went through.”</p><p>Ryan fell quiet and Shane glanced up at him. He was looking back at Shane, silent and concerned.</p><p>“I’m okay,” Shane assured him.</p><p>“If you need to talk with anyone, I’m here,” Ryan said. It was something he had said a lot in the past two-and-a-half days.</p><p>“I know. And I’ll be fine, Ryan. Actually, it’s you I’m worried about.”</p><p>Ryan rubbed at his face, clearly holding back something. Possibly an exasperated groan. “Shane, <em>you’re</em> the one who almost died. If anyone should need help, it’s you.”</p><p>“Ryan, I know you’re saying it out of concern, but I really cannot stress this enough: I was <em>asleep</em>. It’s you I’m worried about. You were the one actually conscious for all that.”</p><p>“But you said you remember it happening. That means you remember…” Ryan made a vague gesture with his hand to indicate “everything.”</p><p>“And maybe the reality of it hasn’t hit me yet,” Shane conceded. “And when it does I’ll make sure to let you know. But I’m pretty sure that I will be able to deal with that trauma with the irrefutable evidence that 1) I survived and 2) so did you.”</p><p>Ryan rolled his eyes and set his crutches aside as he fell back onto his bed. “Whatever you say, Mr. Robot. How about you get ready for bed so we can catch a little bit of sleep before we have to get on the train tomorrow morning.”</p><p>Shane got up and dragged his oxygen tank to the small, narrow path between the bed and the wall so he could dress down as he usually did. He stripped down to his underwear in that small space, like he usually did when they were on the road and there were no cameras. Everything fell to a little pile before Shane pulled back the sheet and slid into bed. He rested against the headboard and breathed deep, knowing it would probably be a while before he was comfortable sleeping lying down. Whenever he lay down, he felt like the NC tube would get dislodged or, worse, strangle him in his sleep. Although it was one of the more ironic ways to go he could think of, Shane wasn’t interested in having any more brushes with death in the near future.</p><p>“Can you get the lights?” Shane asked as he took off his glasses and reached across the bed to set them on the corner of the nightstand. “Can’t quite reach.”</p><p>“Oh, sure.”</p><p>But the lights didn’t turn off. Instead, Ryan sat on the edge of the bed with his legs swinging just slightly. He scratched just above his cast as he thought, his brow furrowed and lips set into a small pout. He sat like that for a few minutes, more than long enough for Shane to think that Ryan was puzzling together something. Shane had closed his eyes during the silence, although he was sure that sleep more than likely wouldn’t come until he was on the train and so tired he would barely be lucid.</p><p>He didn’t need complete darkness to rest in the quiet.</p><p>“Shane?” Ryan finally said, his voice soft enough that Shane was sure he wouldn’t have heard it if he had managed to fall asleep. When Shane looked up at him in response Ryan seemed to stiffen around the shoulders and jaw, but he pressed on anyways. “We need to talk. No! That sounds too foreboding. I didn’t mean that. I meant… can we talk? Or, rather, may I talk to you?”</p><p>Shane nodded, which didn’t seem to do much to alleviate Ryan’s anxiousness.</p><p>“There’s something I need to tell you. And… I’ve been told that telling you would be a mistake. Steven told me that I should keep this quiet, at least until everything that happened this week is far behind us.”</p><p>Shane tilted his head, not wanting to get his hopes up by anticipating anything.</p><p>“Our lawyer told me not to say anything to you either.”</p><p>Shane, frowned and had no idea what to anticipate now.</p><p>“In fact, she said that telling you is ‘damaging, incriminating, unnecessary, and not recommended.’ But I… I can’t just let it sit between us, me knowing what I know.”</p><p>Shane turned towards Ryan as much as he could, folding one of his legs up under him. “And what <em>do</em> you know?”</p><p>“I…” Ryan looked away from Shane and bunched the bedsheets in his hands. “I did this to you. This was entirely my fault.”</p><p>“Ryan,” Shane said, soothing but a little tired. He had heard this so many times already. “Don’t blame yourself. I mean, anyone could have made your mistake. I know you didn’t mean for the accident to happen.”</p><p>“No. Shane, I’ve been wanting to tell you this whole time. It’s actually my fault. I…” He swallowed and the tension in his shoulders seemed to spread throughout his entire body. “I couldn’t see. I could only barely see the road.”</p><p>“It was dark. And there were no streetlights, so that didn’t help. That’s not your fault.”</p><p>“For <em>you </em>it was dark, Shane. For me, everything except for a few feet in front of our headlights was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing. I have night blindness.”</p><p>Shane furrowed his brow and shook his head. “No. Ryan, you’ve driven me around in the dark before. Remember Point Pleasant? It has to be something else.”</p><p>Ryan shook his head in return, a little too quickly and far too stubborn. “It’s changed. It changed after I got that laser surgery to get my vision corrected. I know I had been talking about it for a long time. I know you and Steven were kind of sick of hearing about how much I liked not having to wear glasses anymore. I didn’t want to tell either of you about how I couldn’t see in the dark anymore. How the first time I turned out the light in my bedroom it was so dark that I immediately ran into my shoe rack. And that’s with me already knowing that the shoe rack was there. It was just… dark. Darker than anything I had ever seen before.”</p><p>Shane fell quiet as he processed this. As he tried to imagine driving and barely being able to see anything.</p><p>“Sure, I can drive a little in Los Angeles at night. But it’s always so bright. There are lights everywhere. And I thought that as long as we stayed on the highway then it wouldn’t matter that it was too dark. I thought… I thought I could do this and the idea of admitting that I couldn’t was too embarrassing. I know, I know I should have pulled over and just told you what was wrong. What I did was dumb and stubborn and just really fucking dangerous. I could have killed someone and I almost killed you.”</p><p>Shane watched Ryan, studying him and examining the way he kept turning his head to look at the wall or the black screen of the off television or the floor or anywhere that wasn’t Shane. Ryan’s cheeks rarely colored, but Shane could see a flush creep across them and down his neck. His voice was tight and he kept bunching the sheets and blankets in his hands. Shane knew the look, although it wasn’t something that he saw or experienced often. It was the look of a type of honesty that did little to clear the air and more often than not made things feel worse for everyone. It rarely even came with a relieved conscience, even though it should.</p><p>Shane cleared his throat, breaking the silence of the room. “Ryan?”</p><p>Ryan looked up at Shane and rubbed his palms against the edge of the mattress. “I… I’ve been needing to tell you that.”</p><p>“Come here.” Shane patted the vacant spot next to him on the bed when Ryan looked up. “Come here.”</p><p>Ryan carefully got up, leaning on the nightstand as he moved from one bed to the other. The mattress dipped as he sat down, back to the headboard and only partially against the mound of pillows. When he got closer, Shane could clearly see a mistiness in his eyes and hear his slow, shallow breaths.</p><p>“We’re okay,” Shane said when Ryan still couldn’t look up at him. “We’re okay.”</p><p>“Don’t just say that. You don’t have to make me feel better about what I-”</p><p>“I’m not saying it to make you feel better, I’m saying it because it’s true.” Shane paused and moved a little closer to Ryan. “I’m not <em>just</em> saying it to make you feel better, I should say.”</p><p>“Well, I mean, sleep on it, I guess,” Ryan said. “Because I fucked up a lot and I think you <em>should </em>be angry about it.”</p><p>“Ryan,” Shane sighed. “It’ll take a lot more than that for me to ever want to end what we have. Ghoul boys, Berry boys; like you once said, we took an oath.” He looked down at Ryan, who still seemed a little tense, and rested a hand over his wrist. “You know this goes beyond our shows, right? That this goes beyond Watcher. What we are is something more important to me.”</p><p>Ryan rubbed at his eyes and leaned back into the headboard, staring up at the ceiling. He was clearly still anxious, because he was Ryan, but he was also letting himself be comforted, also because he was Ryan. He wanted to set things right, because he was Ryan, and he wanted to do it even if it ended up hurting him, because he was Ryan. Terror and bravery walked in-step within him and he was not a contradiction, but a brilliant, funny, fascinating man… because he was Ryan.</p><p>And because he could see Ryan and everything Ryan was so clearly in that moment, the next words out of Shane’s mouth were said without thought or hesitation.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>“I love you too.”</p><p>The response was too quick. Shane could count on one hand the number of “I love you”s they had exchanged over the years, each followed with an “I love you too” that Shane had always been afraid that he put more thought into than Ryan. And if this were to be a night of coming clean, Shane supposed that it was his turn.</p><p>“I mean,” Shane said, looking down at where his hand rested on Ryan’s wrist, “I’m in love with you.”</p><p>Shane tensed in anticipation, but Ryan didn’t pull away. Shane didn’t even feel Ryan stiffen up uncomfortably. Instead, Ryan lowered his head, finally looking away from the ceiling. “And… um…” Ryan started, voice not as tense as Shane thought it could be. “What <em>do</em> you mean by that? I… want to… just out of curiosity.”</p><p>Shane tilted his head as he thought, not anticipating that reaction. He answered slowly. Deliberately. “I don’t ever want to lose you. I feel like I am more myself when I’m with you than when I’m with anyone else or even when I’m alone. Sometimes it feels like we even share the same mind and it’s like we know each other better than two people ever had. And sometimes we are so different that hearing you speak is like hearing an entirely different language and it’s beautiful even if I can’t understand. Your happiness means as much to me as my own and when I try to picture my future, I can’t imagine a life without you in it. I don’t want to imagine a life without you in it.”</p><p>Ryan was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Oh.” And then, “I think I’m in love with you too.”</p><p>Shane sat up a little taller as Ryan scooted a little closer to him. He let go of Ryan’s wrist and hesitantly draped his arm over Ryan’s shoulders, looking down at him to make sure that this was alright. Ryan only rested his head against Shane’s shoulder and closed his eyes as he leaned into the half-embrace.</p><p>“What…” Shane started to ask, his fingers moving slowly against Ryan’s bicep. “What does this mean? Are we okay?”</p><p>Ryan furrowed his brow in thought, frowning exaggeratedly as he considered things for a moment. “You know what? I think we are.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Shane was going to ramble on, but stopped when Ryan smiled up at him. What could he say? Ryan’s smile had that effect over him.</p><p>“I mean,” Ryan said. “Usually when two people confess that they’re in love with each other, they turn out pretty okay. That’s… that’s usually how that goes, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Does anything change?” Shane asked.</p><p>“It feels like it should.”</p><p>“Are we dating now?”</p><p>“I guess we could be.” Ryan lifted himself off the headboard and sat up so he could look right at Shane. “It does feel like we should be doing <em>something </em>about it.”</p><p>Shane smiled, liking the dark, playful, nervous look in Ryan’s eyes. “I’d like that.”</p><p>Ryan smiled but neither moved any closer to each other. It was comfortable. There were times when Shane would have longed to drag Ryan close and lie under him. There were plenty of times when he wanted Ryan to be daring or unfiltered or even bruising. But in that moment he was content to sit, enjoying the way Ryan folded himself up against Shane despite his cast being thoroughly in the way.</p><p>“I have a question,” Shane asked. “When I was in a coma, did you wash my hair?”</p><p>Ryan nodded. “I guess I was reliable enough as a go-between for your parents and the insurance and everything else that the nurses let me do it when I asked. I was told that it was only a matter of time before you would wake up, but I still wanted to make sure that I could spend as much time with you as I could. If I didn’t then I would have just sat in my room, worrying about you.”</p><p>Shane felt guilty smiling at how Ryan showered him with attention, but smiled nonetheless. “You kissed me when you did that, didn’t you?”</p><p>Ryan’s eyes widened and a bit of color drained from his face. “Did one of the nurses tell you that? I didn’t think anyone saw.”</p><p>“I wasn’t always entirely unconscious.”</p><p>“They said you could <em>maybe </em>hear us, not that you could… oh my God.”</p><p>Shane wheezed a laugh and put a hand on Ryan’s knee. “Ryan. You’re okay. I liked it. It gave me a hell of a reason to wake up.”</p><p>Ryan buried his face in his hands. “I can’t fucking believe that you were awake to experience me doing one of the creepiest things I have ever done in my life. I don’t know what came over me. I think I’ll blame the pain meds.” He dragged his hands down his face and looked up to see Shane smiling back at him. “Tell me that you don’t remember that first time though.”</p><p>“First time?”</p><p>Ryan sighed and carded his fingers through his hair. “When we were waiting for the ambulance. I… erm… I suppose some could say I kissed you. I certainly tried to resuscitate you.”</p><p>Shane arched his brow. “I guess I don’t remember the first time.”</p><p>Ryan grunted and shook his head, as if he could wince away from the memory. “I don’t know why giving mouth to mouth is always seen as so sexy. That wasn’t fucking sexy. You weren’t breathing. I had never been more scared in my life.”</p><p>Shane gently rubbed the back of Ryan’s hand as the two sat in silence for a few long seconds. He gave Ryan’s hand a supportive squeeze before he tried to divert his attention. “Wanna kiss me while I’m conscious?”</p><p>Ryan wheezed a laugh and hid his face in his hands again. “That’s not funny.”</p><p>Shane smiled and watched Ryan compose himself. “I know.”</p><p>He rubbed at his eyes before lowering his hands again. “I thought you were dead.”</p><p>“I’m not.” He lifted himself away from the headboard with a soft grunt as he leaned towards Ryan. “Because of you, I’m not.”</p><p>Ryan looked up at him, eyes lingering a bit too long on the NC tube before he dropped his focus to Shane’s mouth. Ryan glanced back up again, as if asking for permission as he moved a little closer; as close as a leg wrapped in a cast and snagged on the blankets would allow. Shane nodded, his breaths already growing short as his heart beat faster. Ryan bit his lip and his eyes fluttered closed – the last thing Shane saw before he closed his eyes and felt the warm fullness of Ryan’s lips against him. The kiss was chaste, slightly awkwardly so as they leaned into each other, held back by casts and tubing. As Shane rested his fingertips against Ryan’s jaw he could feel a rigid tension that traveled down his neck.</p><p>Shane pulled back and looked down at Ryan. “Is this okay?”</p><p>Ryan got on his knees as best he could with the cast wrapped around his leg, sitting so he was slightly taller than Shane. He reached out, put his hand in the middle of Shane’s chest, and Shane barely had a moment to register what was happening before Ryan shoved him back into the headboard. He had a hand against the side of Shane’s neck and another buried in Shane’s hair as he partially climbed onto his lap and kissed him again. It was a rougher, deeper, and more experienced kiss.</p><p>Shane felt weak as he sighed contentedly into the kiss and wrapped his arms around the man on top of him. The things he wanted from Ryan flashed through Shane’s mind as he tangled his fingers in soft black hair; at least, until Shane was so short of breath that he pulled away. He cursed softly as he panted for air, Ryan nuzzling against his shoulder.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Shane said.</p><p>“It’s alright.” Ryan dropped a kiss onto his shoulder and sat back. “I guess that’s too physical for right now.”</p><p>Shane groaned in frustration, but when he was so short of breath it came out more as a whine. “The NC tube isn’t very sexy anyways.”</p><p>“I guess we have to take things slow.” Ryan smiled and took Shane by the hand. “But would you like me to stay over here for the night?”</p><p>Shane nodded and adjusted as Ryan got off his lap so he could sit beside him again. Breaths were still coming short, but Shane tried to ignore that as he draped an arm over Ryan’s shoulders again.</p><p>“So you have to stay away from almost all physical activity,” Ryan said. “And you have a hard time talking for too long. What else should we be aware of? I want to help you as much as I can with this.”</p><p>Shane smiled and leaned back into the headboard, letting his head loll backwards with a soft thump. “I think I should be good as long as we don’t jump right into Puppet History.” He sighed and yawned. “I think I won’t be able to sing for a while.”</p><p>Ryan pulled the blanket over their legs and closed his eyes. “Do you want to try? I missed hearing you sing.”</p><p>Shane ran his fingers through Ryan’s hair for a few seconds before he came up with what he should sing. When the sound came out it was soft, with phrases cut short and bookended by slow, deep breaths:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“<em>You walk into the room<br/>
pencil in your hand<br/>
You see somebody naked and you say<br/>
‘Who’s that man?’<br/>
You try so hard<br/>
But you don't understand<br/>
Just what you will say<br/>
When you get home.</em>”</p>
</blockquote><p>Ryan lifted his head off Shane’s shoulder. “What is that?”</p><p>“‘Ballad of a Thin Man.’ Bob Dylan.” Shane yawned; more to cover the fact that he needed to take in more oxygen as opposed to indicating how tired he was. “It was playing when the car… Anyways, it was the first song that came to mind.”</p><p>Ryan paused in thought. “What is the second song that comes to mind?”</p><p>“I don’t think you’ll like it.”</p><p>Ryan sighed. He must have known, Shane thought. Or at least had some idea. He reached over to the nightstand, turned out the light, kissed Shane’s hand and said, “Sing it anyways.”</p><p>Shane breathed deep, but not as deep as he did before. He wasn’t that concerned about phrasing or intensity or even telling a story. They were just words, his words, and their meaning was less important than the need for Ryan to hear them. Shane felt Ryan sigh again, either in sympathy with Shane’s breaths or out of exhaustion at the memory of having to sit there for long minutes after filming <em>Postmortem. </em>Either way, Shane appreciated it and pressed a soft kiss into Ryan’s hair.</p><p>“<em>Sometimes your life… don’t go exactly how you planned.</em>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"Plupple Honeymoon" by Shane Madej</p><p>Thank you for reading. A moodboard for this story can be found <a href="https://spooky-chapscher.tumblr.com/post/638448753202937856/ballad-of-a-thin-man-by-chapscher-he-was-far-too">here</a>, on my BFU tumblr. And don't forget to support the boys by subscribing to Watcher.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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